• City Council Meeting July 2024

 Brief recap of the July 2024 city council meeting. 

Jayda and Maite, students at Julia Lee Performing Arts Academy, led the meeting in the pledge of allegiance.

Jayda and Maite were then recognized for their achievements in the Invention Convention nationwide competition (we're working on a blog and video idea to get the full story out, stay tuned).

There were two key items on the agenda that I want to share here

Item 3.3 was pushed to the front of the meeting out of consideration of those in attendance. 

The area in question.

I'm going to get right into this topic from my perspective

In the two-year comprehensive process of updating the Wildomar General Plan this piece of the puzzle was the one that fell through the cracks.

When this initially hit the city council as part of a General Plan Update review in 2023, this area didn't come with any fanfare. It's long been designated to be LDR (Low Density Residential which is 2 homes per acre). 

During six meetings with the General Plan Advisory Group the idea of changing the existing LDR to EDR (Estate Density Residential which is 1 home per 2 acres) wasn't brought up.

The first instance of this being brought was up when the Planning Commission was reviewing the General Plan Update progress to that point.

The crux of the matter is that 50 property owners on the west side of Grand Ave wanted to, essentially, reduce the value of the land on the east side to maintain the feel they've been accustomed to. Yes, that's my summation of it, and I gather it's shared by many who are up on this matter. 

That was the concern of the property owners who had skin in the game. Seeing the number of potential homes their properties could develop reduced by 75% was jaw-dropping for them.

Wildomar Rap opinion time

To get a better feel of the situation, understand that on the northside of McVicar there is a new subdivision with about 108 homes on a fraction of the acreage of the land in question MDR (Medium Density Residential). 

I asked for a ballpark figure of how many homes could be built based on LDR. The rough estimate was 120. Look at the image above again. 

That includes the entire stretch of the land that is in a bold black outline.

In reality, there are very many environmental concerns on that land since it's so near the creek. It's very likely that when the properties are developed they could see that number reduced by 30% to half. 

Two homes per acre, one home per half acre, is NOT anything akin to medium density, which is what the area is surrounded by on two sides. The third side isn't even residential.

Quick math means instead of a pie-in-the-sky number of houses at LDR being pegged at 120, reducing it to EDR would downgrade it to 30 homes. 

A pretty easy request when your family hasn't owned it for forty and fifty years. 

It was said in an email, and again during the meeting that it was 50 to 3 in favor, and that we should keep those numbers in mind, "It doesn't make sense to placate three owners."

I began my remarks by reminding us all that we're neighbors. Maybe not "next door" neighbors, but still neighbors nonetheless in our small community. 

When it was time for me, Councilman Joseph Morabito, to speak I mentioned that was known as Argumentum ad Populum.

Very common, and very persuasive at times, but still a logical fallacy.

In my mind, the people on the westside had no standing. No more standing than a resident of Windsong Valley, or of someone living in The Farm. Opinions are important but carry very little weight if they don't come with standing. 

I wondered how 50 property owners could get together to share their opinions without them going across the street (literally) and asking for the opinion of the 3 property owners that would actually be impacted by a change in the density.

Council discussion of Item 3.3

Mind you, for the most part, these people all know each other and have been neighbors since before Grand Avenue was even paved. How difficult would it have been to invite one of them over for some lemonade? 

If Itchy and Scratchy can share some lemonade, so can people who live on opposite sides of Grand Ave in Wildomar, and let the other know what they have cooking. 

I suggested that the idea up front was reasonable enough, and then compared it to Tres Lagos when those developers came to a city council meeting. 

At that meeting, I spoke directly to the developers and said that though they had the power of the state in their hands, that the moment they visited the property in question they should have realized they couldn't build the project they had in mind (of course, in that case, they had dollar signs in their eyes and couldn't have cared less about the ramifications of their actions).

I brought the discussion back to Item 3.3 by saying they should have chatted with their neighbors about what they were thinking, and once learning that the idea wasn't supported the westsiders would have said, "Aw shucks, I guess we won't pursue this further."

But no, the first time the eastside property owners learned of this was well after it got past the first hurdle at the Planning Commission. 

I originally heard about there being an issue through an email from a resident on the eastside just a few months ago. 

One of the platforms I ran on in 2018 was Property Owner's Rights. What is more American than owning property and being able to develop it? (obviously, the caveat to that is developing the land according to the existing rules)

No need for me to beat this to death. The vote went 4-1 in favor of keeping the current land use to LDR and not changing it to EDR.

I'll add a link to the video where you can watch it in real time. The dozen or so public speakers and the discussion of the city council.

LINK TO VIDEO

It's really easy to find the item in the video. Depending on your device, after clicking the link, find the table of contents and click on Item 3.3.

Last item I'm going to go over was on the City Manager's Report

I was pleasantly surprised that a fence/wall surrounding the Riverside County Flood Control property on the corner of Monte Vista and Bundy Canyon was revisited.

The area in red is the location in question.

Last month I was the lone dissenting vote when it came to paying about half a million dollars to upgrade a chainlink fence to a block pilaster and wrought iron. 

If we were to do that, then the maintenance of the fence/wall would fall back onto the city. Which can be costly if you have much experience with wrought iron. 

Nothing was settled, but I was glad to see that might just go back to being a fence with slats in it as is currently the case on the northside of Bundy Canyon across the street from this site.