• City Council Meeting May 2016

May's city council meeting started off with a recognition of Care Rite Volunteers. A family owned, community based program that has served adults with intellectual disabilities in the Temecula Valley for twenty years.

Bridgette Watkins, Taylor Osland, Mayor Moore, Scott Davis and Kelli Hayhoe. 

There was a recognition given to long time Elsinore High School principal, Dr. Jon Hurst for his 28 years of service.

Incoming principal Sarah Arredondo, Dr. Jon Hurst, Mayor Bridgette Moore.

Below is a link to the video covering the presentation.

Public Comments

• Miss Miller discussing the coming elections. No singing tonight, but she didn't want to leave the podium after her time was up. Finally she relented and said, "Quit asking me how I am, and I'll exchange that nice-isity [sic] if you vote for Mr. (Bernie) Sanders."

• Ken Mayes talked about the broken guardrail at Palomar and Mission Trail.

• Ann Giggins asked about the coming Grand Ave bike lanes.

Council Communications is where the members of the council tell what they've been up to during the last month. 

• Bob Cashman: attended a coordination meeting with LEUSD.

• Tim Walker: "It's nice to be alive" alluding to a medical procedure he underwent and is recovering from.

It was around the world in 80 days with Ben Benoit. He made stops at Marna O'Brien park for the BBQ, in Washington DC for WRCOG, in Sacramento about the HERO program, at a SCAG meeting (Southern California Association of Governments). 

He also toured the 91 freeway construction.  
(Hence the hardhat)

• Bridgette Moore: Spoke about the Historical Society's annual cleanup of the cemetery for Memorial Day, movie in the park this Saturday, Fitness Fair and ALS-1 5k on June 4th, attended Donate Life Mayor's Challenge, Wildomar's population is now 35,168, about 100 tons of trash were collected at the community clean up event of the last weekend. 

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The meat and potatoes of the meeting came in agenda item 3.1, regarding a GPIP (General Plan Amendment Initiation Proposal). This is where a builder/developer asks if he can ask to amend the general plan. 

Location of the proposed Standrod project.

This was discussed in the blog covering the April planning commission meeting, where it got tepid support (at best).

(Link to April Planning Commission Blog)

It started off with the developers talking about themselves, including that one likes to race motorcycles and cars and the other likes to hunt and fish.

I guess that's cool, but what does that have to do with Wildomar and you wanting to change the zoning from VLDR (very low density residential) to HDR (High Density Residential) Or, 1 unit per acre to 12 units per acre, for the layman.

I was glad to see that none of the four councilmembers embraced this plan, Marsha Swanson wasn't in attendance.

Key points from each member are as follows:
• Bob Cashman:

• I have trouble supporting this because of the density.
• I appreciate that you're working on making it a nice development, but it still comes down to the long term benefit to Wildomar of the place.
• I have a really hard time supporting this project because in my mind it's contrary to the type of Wildomar that I expect to see in the future... I don't think everything has to be built to the maximum.

Tim Walker: 

• The density is the problem for me, I think it's a little bit too high density. It just seems sardined in there.
• It just reminds me of the one (apartment complex) in Murrieta and it's just the most unappealing place I've ever seen. This one doesn't quite look like that because you set your building sideways. I'm a little stirred on the density.
• The density's a little high for me, but that's just my personal opinion.

Ben Benoit: 

• I'm with Bob and Tim on this where it's a concern about the density. 
• Tonight what we're going to be looking at is just a general plan amendment. Obviously you're going to come back before us with your final product and I have some concerns. I think it might be tough to get a vote for your final product if that's what comes back. 

Bridgette Moore:

• My concern is a little bit different —the apartment aspect. How many apartments do we already have in the pipeline?

At this point Planning Director Matt Bassi displayed the following slide showing how many apartments are either already in Wildomar, or in the process of coming online.

Hmmm, perhaps George Taylor, longtime resident out at The Farm, is right about us being
"the high density capital of the world" after all? ☺

To which Mayor Moore replied, "That's a lot."

• Besides this project, I think we need to look at all apartments and condos going forward and —I don't want to say stop, but that's a lot (motioning to the graphic) when you look at it all added up like that. 

Benoit came back with, "You've heard our concerns and I wish you the best. I'm going to make a motion. I move that the applicant may initiate the process for the proposed general plan amendment if the applicant so chooses. But the applicant should be fully aware of the concerns expressed by the council tonight at tonight's meeting."

From there the motion was seconded by councilmember Walker and then approved unanimously.

One last note on this proposed project.

Tim Walker asked what the rents would likely be and the answer was $1500 for 2 bedrooms and $1700 for 3 bedrooms. 

If those prices sound high, which they do to my ears, they are actually under market for new apts in The W. 

Rents for three bedroom apartments are often over $2k per month.

According to the graphic above, the claims of the developers tonight, which are that there are no 3 bedroom units available in the city, has been debunked.

◄  •  ►

3.2 Transition Year Debt Forgiveness

It's official. Wildomar is no longer in debt to the county for the costs associated with becoming a city.

Councilmember Benoit wanted to remind everyone that we are still losing about $2,000,000 per year with the diverted VLF funds that Governor Brown thought were better off in Sacramento than here.

It's something that most every other city gets in California, about fifty bucks per resident, except the newest ones; including Eastvale, Jurupa Valley and Menifee. 

Mayor Moore reiterated that Wildomar has no debt and no unfunded pensions.

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There are two times in a man's life when he gets into bad company —when he's dead broke, and when he's rich.

— O. Henry

Wildomar Rap has never endorsed sleeping on a bed of roses, nor a bed of raisins for that matter.

• Planning Commission Meeting April 2016

This meeting had a lot of apartment talk in it, but it started off with a zoning ordinance amendment that ended up getting tabled.

Agenda Item 2.2 was more house cleaning necessary for the city to further distance itself from the county, plus clarify a few things. 

The existing ordinance was put together by the county and it was time to update it. This ordinance deals with events that are held in the city. 

The current document separates events into two categories: major events (more than 2000 people) and minor events (between 200 and 2000 people). 

They are being consolidated into the single term: temporary event.

Also being added to the language is Farmer's Markets.

The key hangup, that required the item to be tabled, was the hours of operation. At the moment, an event can run four consecutive days from the hours of 6:00am to 2:00am. 

I know that some areas have festivals that seem to go on all day and all night, Coachella Music Festival comes to mind, but I doubt that anything like that has ever even been proposed in Wildomar.

A special subcommittee, comprised of commissioners Stan Smith and John Lloyd, will sit down with city staffers to hammer out their proposals for any changes. Then it'll go back to the full planning commission, and finally onto the full city council.

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Agenda item 3.1, was a "study session" for a proposed project that will be off of Bundy Canyon, just north of the coming Walmart. 

The project proposes to develop all 140 units in a “cluster-style” design on approximately 10.5 acres of the 28.8 acre site. 

The project is still at the early stages and will need a full EIR (Environmental Impact Report). 

A common thread of concern was that the project was going to be apartments instead of townhouses/condos. 

Some of the units will be stacked three high, but it'll mostly be hidden from general view, and the only impact that will be felt from such a project is the added traffic that Bundy Canyon will be getting.

I just love the marketing departments that these developers use. They're calling these "Resort Apartments." 

Unless this is going to be some type of time share, who's fooling who here? Well, it will be gate guarded, so I guess that counts for something.

The above is an artist's rendition of the "Resort" apartments, but I  added the titles at the bottom. The word "Resort" was used to describe the project during the planning commission meeting.

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3.2 Standrod General Plan Initiation Request (GPIP) 
This is very early on in the planning stages. What they are looking to do is have the zoning changed from 1 unit per acre to 12 units per acre.

A proposed General Plan Amendment (GPA) from Very Low Density Residential (VLDR) to High Density Residential (HDR).

Here you see the architect selling his apartments to the planning commission. He told them that it's almost laughable to consider "12 units to the acre" as High Density, because in Huntington Beach it's common to have over 100 units per acre. You can imagine the *thud* that made with most that were in attendance, like a lead balloon hitting the ground in a hurry. 

Though that is a big jump, the argument was that the area in question (see image below) isn't a desirable area for a single family home on a large lot, and that with all the restrictions a builder faces in 21st century California, it's no longer feasible to build small projects.

The proposal from VLDR to HDR desired by the Applicant is needed to accommodate a potential 24 unit multi-family apartment project.

One of the descriptions that I objected to was where they were referring to these apartment projects as ideal for "young families."

When I was first out on my own, an apartment was all that most young people could afford. 

These days, based on the going rates of the new apartment complexes in Wildomar, they cost more to live in than a house in most cases.

The other part that I enjoyed is where George Taylor, long time resident at The Farm, invoked his patented refrain of Wildomar becoming the high density capital of the world.

When it was my turn to speak, I took the opportunity to differ over Wildomar's worthiness of such descriptions.

The short video below (all in good fun) has the isolated portions of both George's and my comments regarding it. George is a good Wildomohican (pronounced Will-Dough-Moe-HE-Ken), but I don't see what he sees on this one.

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Max: Oh, yes, I'm a big music lover. Would you believe that I once listened to three weeks of Beethoven? Would you believe it? Three weeks!
Villain: I find that quite hard to believe.
Max: Would you believe (thinks a while) Two weeks of Bach?
Villain: I don't think so.
Max: Would you believe... one hour of Looney Tunes?

Wildomar Rap is becoming less and less a fan of poorly placed hyperbole.