SOUNDING OFF: Time for senior, community centers

We are immediate neighbors on Loma Terrace, overlooking the proposed senior and community centers, which will be approximately 40 feet from our homes.

As members of the Downtown Neighborhood Assn. (to which interested neighbors belong), we have actively participated since June 21, 2002 with the seniors, the City Council, the city, and the architects, LPA, to ensure that the project blends with the neighborhood, satisfies the needs of the centers, and avoids air, light and noise pollution among other factors.

Whereas not all our requests have been met, we believe that a good faith effort has been made by all parties, which should enable the project to proceed without any further delay.

It has now come to our attention that there is a claim suggesting a lack of windows and natural light with “16 out of 22 rooms” without windows, and fostering “a sense of isolation and being confined and trapped.”

On reviewing the July 12, 2006 plans, there are 17 populated rooms and two toilet facilities, with 11 rooms having natural light; six having windows or skylights. There are only six rooms without natural light in this large facility.

Being on a busy street such as Third, it is clear that the center will require heating and air-conditioning, particularly when considering the noise and air pollution generated by the traffic. The privacy of seniors and community participants should be respected, and, therefore, the location of windows needs to be carefully considered. This, we believe, LPA has done.

It has been four years since the neighbors and the authorities began working to develop a mutually acceptable solution to fitting the senior and community centers into this difficult site. It is now time for the seniors and our comm- unity to get their centers.