Why they don’t dig parking plan

Roger Von Butow

The Village Flatlanders Neighborhood Assn. is grateful for the

opportunity to correct numerous inaccuracies regarding our petitions

to the city and the developers of the site formerly known as The

Pottery Shack.

We did not, as your June 17 editorial stated, get something we

wished for, but rather the Brooks Street LLC got a sweetheart deal

that no private homeowner would ever get.

The City Council, without any site plan or details posted at the

hearing on June 7, with nothing available but rumors prior to the

meeting, approved a series of major alterations before they were

properly considered by their own appointed committees (Design Review

Board, Planning, Parking and Traffic Circulation, and Heritage).

We have consistently demanded during the entire process that a

subterranean lot be implemented to comply with ordinances, and it

should have been the fiscal burden of the developers to assure

on-site employee and visitor parking demands are met. We kept “on

message” and never strayed from that goal.

Forty new spaces, only 10 earmarked for the shopping center. And

who is going to monitor the lots, with no attendant even discussed?

The council made no demands on June 7, only capitulations, and the

developers will be able to lease the additional 30 spaces for

personal corporate profit.

The council originally prescribed no valet parking for this site.

They have now overruled themselves, and does anyone in their right

mind believe that surrounding commerce will lease these expensive

spaces for dishwashers, waitresses or maids? It will be a shopping

center and not carry the famous Pottery Shack name, which has rallied

false, nostalgic sentimentality among the community.

When you bulldoze 75% of the site, when you demolish the only

historic structures like the rear building, when you get council

approval for a complete reconfiguration of the parking lot to create

a traffic circulation conundrum (including a subterranean level) with

multiple access/egress points, and when you remove a 75-year-old

sycamore tree without remorse or a second thought, you’re not in

compliance with the original spirit of the rehabilitation, so what’s

in a name anyway?

The city has agreed that our neighborhood is under-parked by

hundreds of spaces, so how does this pitiful increase legally

mitigate that?

The Village Flatlanders Neighborhood Assn. collected almost 500

signatures, asking for an environmental report a year ago, with

then-council candidate Jane Egly one of those concerned locals.

When Councilwoman Egly claimed confusion two weeks ago regarding

our demands, she obviously forgot this. She also forgot that we met

with her and stated our position in no uncertain terms: The lower

level would meet the increased demands for site or at minimum become

a city-operated and owned lot.

Apparently that theatrical hat she threw into the campaign ring a

while back is empty-headed. Ditto for our ex-parte communications

with Councilwoman Toni Iseman and Mayor Elizabeth Pearson-Schneider.

Council members are hypocritical when it claims they’re seeking more

satellite parking. Iseman said it costs $40,000 per space in Laguna,

in this case another $1.6 million dollars for the additional 40

spaces in a neighborhood already over-whelmed.

So where and when does the city expect to find spaces if it

refuses to pay for them or force commercial developers to pay as they

play? Couldn’t the city have demanded that the developer create this

underground facility so the city could have meters there for mutual

public benefit and city coffers? What kind of council believes its

residents are immature thinkers and expect more spaces to come free?

Didn’t we learn anything from the failures and lapses of the Treasure

Island project?

Our reasoning has not been “tortured,” as your editorial said, but

consistently logical. We are like strict constitutionalists: We do

not believe that any governing body should stretch, ignore, or

circumvent municipal procedures and the California Environmental

Quality Act for private financial gain. Nor should the wealthy have

options, entitlements or advantages denied the general population.

Lastly, name-calling should be beneath this paper, and demeaning the

real watchdogs like neighborhood associations is sad. Breaching their

entrusted electoral responsibilities, the city didn’t look out for

us. If we are the “purists” you described, it’s because we’ve studied

our terrain and laws thoroughly, know them better than our council

and staff. The developer’s investment group got everything it wanted

and more without any restraint or concessions.

Our city weakly rolled over when these developers threatened

litigation and, worse, a boogeyman Village Faire Mall redux early on.

The council waved a white hanky in cowardice before the first

hearings last year. If they can’t negotiate firmly and intelligently

for residents, if our council is bamboozled so easily when it has

leverage as it did at Treasure Island, where is this city going? Or

is it already there?

* Roger Von Butow is the environmental officer of the Village

Flatlanders Neighborhood Assn.