Archives for posts with tag: Fullerton Planning
« Older Entries
Newer Entries »

Awful Undead Amerige Court Returns with a New Name. Meeting Monday Night!

December 10, 2016 //
4

amerige-court-2016

Right where you park now for free, on public land.

The proposed downtown high density development formerly known as Amerige Court returns with a new name Monday night, December 12, 6:00 p.m. at the Fullerton Public Library’s Community Room (353 W. Commonwealth Avenue).

http://www.ci.fullerton.ca.us/news/displaynews.asp?NewsID=2226&TargetID=1

Amerige Court was supposed to be a set of six story residential and retail buildings with accompanying parking structures on either side West Amerige Ave. just west of Harbor Blvd.—you know, that place where you park your car for free now. Documents and a timeline from the long, long history of this project, now called Amerige something or other (I can’t find it), can be found at this link on the city’s own website:

http://www.cityoffullerton.com/gov/departments/dev_serv/development_activity/amerige_court/default.asp

The first date you will find listed is in 2006, when formal plans were made public, but the project actually began as a drawing made on behalf of Fullerton’s own Redevelopment Agency years before right around the time the downtown area was being transformed into a bar district. That’s right, the city itself came up with the idea of building on its (our) own parking lots downtown, then went looking for a developer to build something there that was originally supposed to provide more parking there for the businesses.

A project by the Pelican-Laing group was approved by the Fullerton City Council in 2008, but the final plan actually represented a net loss in parking. Of course, the architecture was a cartoonish mishmash of trendy faux urbane fake brick and stucco familiar to anyone who looks up while driving around OC these days. It was just one of the objections that led to a petition bearing the signatures of over four hundred residents against the project that was wordlessly set aside without comment before the vote was taken. (One Fullerton resident who spoke out against the plan was none other than Karen Haluza, now Fullerton’s Director of Community Development, who argued that it was bad planning to put parking squarely in the middle of the downtown district.)

The good news was that Pelican-Laing couldn’t get anything done with the plan. After several years and successive amendments meant to give the developer more and more time to build something, even some of the council members had had enough, but they were outvoted by the later-recalled Don Bankhead, Pat McKinley, and Dick Jones, M.D.

Amerige Court Circus

Amerige Court in 2008, a pile of junk no one wanted on land given away to the developer.

Scarcely a month after the 2012 Recall a new public parking structure had been built just south of the site on Santa Fe Ave. to accommodate daytime train commuters across the street, but it began to look like it would also serve handily as extra parking for the now burgeoning bar and restaurant crowd at night. Neat trick, but with over 800 new spaces now available, what was the rationale for Amerige Court, again?

More time passed, and two more extensions were eventually passed by the council to give the developer even more time to get something off the ground, even though no one really seemed to want anything there except for the Chamber of Commerce and its cheerleaders, and the developers who contribute to the campaigns of council members…It wasn’t even clear during the last extension hearing whether or not some members of the council understood that the development rights has been sold by this time to the Richman Group, themselves responsible for other utterly forgettable high density residences around town.

Which brings us back to a new beginning for the project that no one wants—a public meeting to find out how much we don’t want it, and how high we don’t want it to be, and what we don’t want it to look like. Be there. There are other massive high density housing/retail projects in the pipeline or already built in Fullerton, but Amerige Court is special because it would be built on public land—your land. And if you don’t want that public land given away to a developer to build something huge and ugly, you ought to let them know at every available opportunity.

 

Tags , , ,
Categories Amerige Court, Fullerton City Council, Fullerton Planning, Karen Haluza, Uncategorized

For $ 55.00 Fullerton Mayor Jennifer Fitzgerald Will Tell Developers How to “Approach” Elected Officials Like Herself

October 18, 2016 //
4

nextgen-land-use

There’s so much land to use…and Jennifer Fitzgerald will help you to use it!


Do you know what Fullerton Mayor Jennifer Fitzgerald is doing today? Advising developers about how to get their projects built. Tuesday, October 18, The Building Industry Association of Orange County (who have given Jennifer Fitzgerald’s reelection campaign $ 3,000.00) will offer a workshop about the “Politics of Land Use.” For $ 55, $ 35 for BIA members, prospective developers can listen to a panel of notorious government influencers consisting of:

“Curt Pringle, Curt Pringle and Associates; Former Mayor of Anaheim” and Former CA State Assembly Speaker, now head of one of Orange County’s most influential “public relations” firms, that boasts of, among other things, providing “government affairs” and “land use” services

“Jennifer Fitzgerald, Vice President, Curt Pringle and Associates; Mayor Fullerton” (note that Jennifer Fitzgerald claims to be an independent contractor, but everyone else, including Curt Pringle & Associates’ website calls her a VP in the company). What does she do there? We don’t know, because she won’t release a list of clients so the public would be able to tell for themselves whether or not she has any conflicts of interest between her paid work and her position on the Fullerton City Council.

“David Ellis, Principal, Delta Partners,” a political consultant who once used his position on the Board of the Orange County Fairgrounds to try to sell the property out from under the taxpayers. For more information about him, read Vern Nelson’s excoriating masterpiece on the Orange Juice Blog.

Perhaps it’s supposed to be a self-deferencial joke, but titling the workshop “Sense of Entitlement” isn’t very funny to those of us not amused by the explosive proliferation of high density housing/tiny amount of retail developments going up all over town.

Here is the official description of it:

“The first workshop, Sense of Entitlement, is intended to provide the audience with practical advice regarding interacting with decision makers and stakeholders through the development approval process. Panelists will discuss strategy to address the numerous and conflicting demands of government officials and community stakeholders whose interests always go beyond meeting the technical and legal requirements to develop land.”

In other words, how to “interact with decision makers,” like Jennifer Fitzgerald herself, and “stakeholders,” like you, who might take exception to having their communities turned into mini-Manhattans before their eyes.

Here are some other details meant to entice developers into attending…

“Questions to be Addressed Include:

  • How should stakeholders or government officials be approached when discussing a proposed project?
  • What are elected and appointed officials watching for at a public hearing?
  • As a real estate professional, how active should we be in local government?”

So, if you are a developer and want to know how to “approach” and “engage” the elected officials entrusted by voters to approve projects, learn from one of them herself, Jennifer Fitzgerald. If you are a stakeholder, you’ll just have to wait until Jennifer Fitzgerald and the BIA get around to holding a workshop for you.

 

Thanks for Sean Paden for first writing about this event on Facebook (where you can “Like” The Fullerton Rag’s page!).

Tags , ,
Categories Curt Pringle, Fullerton Planning, Jennifer Fitzgerald, Uncategorized

Fullerton Planning Commissioner Ma’Ayn Johnson Uses South Park Rationale to Approve Development on 600 Block of West Commonwealth

October 4, 2016 //
6
ma-ayn-johnson-south-park

“This type of project……… will push us that much closer to having a Trader Joe’s here.”–Ma ‘Ayn Johnson, Sept. 28, 2016, Fullerton Planning Commission.

 

On September 28, 2016 the Fullerton Planning Commission approved a 610,182 square foot, 295-unit, 4 story mixed-use development on the 600 block of West Commonwealth Ave. on land that had previously been a car dealership. In a split 4 to 3 vote, the Planning Commission approved a Zone Change, a General Plan Revision, a Major Site Plan and a Mitigated Negative Declaration.

red-oak-fullerton-commonwealth-plan

610,000+ more square feet of overscaled development, whether or not we want it in Fullerton. Where is the traffic going to go? And where do we get the water?

 

Nearby residents’ objections to the plan included inadequate parking and the expected increased traffic in their neighborhoods, as well as the project’s inappropriately large size in relation to older surrounding houses. Commissioner Ma ‘Ayn Johnson voted in the majority to approve the project anyway, justifying her decision with reasoning reminiscent of a 2015 episode of the satirical animated television show South Park.

sodasopa

SodaSopa will bring…

south-park-whole-foods

…Whole Foods to South Park.

 

In the episode “The City Part of Town,” residents of South Park build SodoSopa (“South of Downtown South Park”), a gentrified loft-style district intended to attract young hipsters who will shop at the Whole Foods Market the small Colorado mountain town hopes to attract. The 2,000 square foot dwellings are promoted as high style living near the center of the town’s social hub “from the independent merchants and unique cafes to the rustic charm of a mixed income crowd.” The “mixed income crowd” are the economically disadvantaged family of orange hoodie wearing Kenny McCormick, whose house becomes surrounded by high-rises with open floor plan apartments rented by seemingly carefree couples who spend their disposable income in the local bars and restaurants.

The episode’s hilarious mixed animated and live action commercial for the SodoSopa development is dead-on accurate in its depiction of the shallow glamour pitched to young would-be urbanites hoping to simultaneously enjoy comfortable modern living and still claim the local proletariat authenticity of living near an older neighborhood of struggling working class families…

In a case of life-imitating-art-imitating-what-passes-for-life in suburban fake lofts, Ms. Johnson cited a recent attempt by Fullerton residents to attract a Trader Joe’s market back to Fullerton. A discussion on the neighborhood social media app NexDoor.com suggested that residents visit Trader Joe’s website to request a new store in Fullerton (the one that used to be here moved to Brea many years ago). Readers who subscribe to NextDoor know that members responded to the call in great number, and that a robust discussion about how to draw the “alt” chain grocery store back to Fullerton ensued (and continues).

img_7244

OMG, we have to go to Brea for crackers!

 

Picking up on the desperation of Fullertonions forced to commute to Brea to purchase packaged nuts, international cheeses, cleverly named noodles, gourmet potato chips, discounted liquor, better greeting cards, dried apricots, microwave-ready brussels sprouts,  and seasonal crackers, Ms. Johnson suggested that Trader Joe’s wouldn’t move back to town until we attracted more of the right demographic, those with disposable income, to live here by approving projects like Red Oak Investments’ four story mixed use residences on Commonwealth:

Fullerton has never exactly been ahead of the curve, but can’t we aspire to be better than an  animated cartoon comedy about a backwards Colorado mountain town? Do we really need to change the whole city to attract more of the “right demographic” just to have a Trader Joe’s here?

red-oak-fullerton-commonwealth

Red Oak’s 295 unit mixed use development will bring…

 

trader-joes

…Trader Joe’s back to Fullerton…?

Tags ,
Categories Fullerton Planning, Uncategorized
« Older Entries
Newer Entries »