Here's what we wrote about them yesterday:
AGENDA FOR TOMORROW NIGHT'S CITY COUNCIL MEETING
Improver alert: There are three residential development projects in the preliminary stage slowly making their way through the process that will be heard by the Council at this meeting. All three are on the Westside.
Go to New Business on the City Council agenda (HERE) to see all the details, a few of which we've excerpted below.
If you live near these projects, now is the time to give your views on them to the Council, because this is the best time to suggest changes to the Council, if you think some are needed.
#1--765 West 16th Street; 1.75 Acres; 33 Units; 108 Parking spaces. Screening request.
# 2--SWC Harbor & Hamilton; 1.5 Acres; 28 units; 111 Parking spaces. Interpretation of Gen'l Plan and zoning.
#3--1239 Victoria; 1.63 Acres; 28 Units; 112 Parking spaces. Screening request.
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The CM PRESS position: We need to encourage some WORK/Live product in addition to all the LIVE/work units that are being proposed. And, we need to start evaluating where things are going and make some adjustments as necessary. The Westside Plans were to prime the pump. They were not intended to be like the out of control brooms in Fantasia.
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SOME DEEP BACKGROUND
Let us once again give you some deep background and again cite our bonafides in relation to the improvement of the Westside as a reason why our opinions might be worth listening to in this regard.
If you are a new reader, this may be news to you.
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More than a decade ago, the CM PRESS was at a City Council meeting when a woman who lives in Corona del Mar came to the meeting and made a presentation to the City Council in which she asked the Council to help turn the Westside into a permanent ethnic ghetto (my words not her's) by making it like Huntington Park (a Third World city near Compton and South Central LA). And, yes, she did use Huntington Park as her ideal.
The CM PRESS was aghast. The Westside is close to the ocean and Newport Beach and to make it into a mirror image of a land bound inner city slum seemed so wrong to us that we almost thought she was joking (she wasn't). So, that very evening we went home and wrote up a counter vision for the Westside.
At the next City Council meeting, we presented our counter vision.
We then got a phone call from a guy who actually lives on the Westside who saw our presentation on TV and agreed with us and wanted to meet. This was the birth of the Westside Improvement Association (Improvers)--after we did meet near CM PRESS HQ in Mesa North.
After that, the Improvers helped elect someone to the City Council (and then another and another).
The improvers also got the City to start a couple of official City sponsored Westside committees.
The Westside committees came up with the various Westside Plans and the overlays as official documents for the improvement of the Westside. You can access these on the City's website and we link to one of them up on your right.
Those plans and overlays are essentially the same as the CM PRESS's vision plan that we presented to the City Council, but with the minor details added. Our plan was a big picture strategic plan and the final plans were the tactical plans to get there.
So, with the above in mind, and again emphasizing that the CM PRESS didn't just come to ideas about improving the Westside yesterday, we repeat:
The CM PRESS position: We need to encourage some WORK/Live product in addition to all the LIVE/work units that are being proposed. And, we need to start evaluating where things are going and make some adjustments as necessary. The Westside Plans were to prime the pump. They were not intended to be like the out of control brooms in Fantasia.
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NB: So new was our talk of improving the Westside back then, that the Daily Pilot in its reporting still wasn't sure how to refer to that section of town and often called it the West Side, rather than the version we adopted and which is now the standard: Westside.
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if you look at the map of at least the victoria development: it is underparked-- much of the parking that is not garaged is driveways. You have more than 2 guests coming? So much for hosting thanksgiving at your place. THeyll have to park up the hill at the shopping plaza! This is something young family with $$$ look for-- places for guests to park! Thatll turn it into a "ill settle for that" kind of development. THey can certainly find it in HB just down the hill or in fountain valley-- not a good move
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