[an]

San Jose downtown is exactly what I’m talking about. Its a downtown. You can use San Diego as an example too. But Carmel valley is a suburb, not a city. It doesn’t have an area zoned for high density mixed used to start with.

[an]

[quote=The-Shoveler][quote=AN]suburb. Have you seen very many suburb with no urban core reinvent/grow itself and add an urban core?
[/quote]

Yes, take a drive through the San Fernando valley.

Even some parts of San Jose.

Also the Asian communities in Diamond Bar, San Gabriel, etc.. even Arcadia now[/quote]Thank goodness for Google street view. Do you have some address I can look at? I’ve driven around San Jose and it still look like a bunch of strip malls. Based on the Bird’s eye view in Bing map of Diamond Bar, all I see are strip malls. Nothing I would call an urban/town center. Maybe I’m not driving through the right part.

[an]

[quote=The-Shoveler]That’s kind of the point, it grows organically as a location matures and grows, it’s not force fed.

When the strip mall owner is suddenly offered 10-20 million for his land, the Biz owners will mostly like get something too, it just kind of works itself out.[/quote]But areas like built out suburbs won’t grow, unless it already has an urban core w/in it. If it doesn’t, it will most likely just stand still as a suburb. Have you seen very many suburb with no urban core reinvent/grow itself and add an urban core?
Even if the strip mall owner might get offered 10-20 millions for his land, the surrounding residence won’t let that strip mall be converted to an urban core with mix use. That’s my point, I just don’t see that happen. A strip mall can be renovated, but it will stay a strip mall.
Also, you don’t want just any strip mall to be converted to mix used urban core. You want your urban core to be near freeway/public transit. Those are the kind of things that need proper planning.

[an]

[quote=The-Shoveler]Me I think high density development should happen like it did in L.A.

It mostly occurred by developers buying up old dilapidated parts of downtown (or near downtown), tearing it down and re-developing the area.
To me that is more natural and organic instead of just force feeding and using hormones type of development.

Anyway not my fight but just does not seem like the right way to do this type of thing.[/quote]
That kind of re-development works best in already somewhat dense city center. I don’t see it happening in the suburbs. I just don’t see strip malls being torn down and replaced by highly dense village/town centers. The long term residence would fight that tooth and nail. They’re already fighting it when the land is empty. Imagine how much harder they’ll fight if there’s pre-existing businesses there.

[an]

[quote=carli]No to your third statement, as I don’t think I ever said “it’s impossible to stop the development” but what I did say is that there are already developments in the pipeline that should not/could not be stopped. [/quote]I take that to mean the same thing, but I guess you can argue about semantics. But the end result is, no change.

[quote=carli]And no to your fourth statement “…you don’t mind that Carmel Valley will forever be a lower density area with no public transit…” If that’s how you understood what I was stating, I’ll clarify this is not what I meant to express. I do not want Carmel Valley to be solely made up of low density housing, nor do I want it to stay free of public transit. The opposite is true.

I think we differ in terms of the priority we place on things like aesthetics, quality of life (including hassle factors like traffic), environmental impacts, etc, or maybe we just have different needs.

Either way, I believe residents of a city should have a chance to weigh in on both the community planning process as well as major deviations from the plan, such as this one. As you said, it’s too bad we can’t send this One Paseo proposal to a vote.

As someone else mentioned, of course community plans become outdated quickly so let’s figure out a way to respond quicker to the changes in our community. But swinging the pendulum all the way to the other side and throwing out the plan to say yes to any developer’s proposal (the denser, the better) just because we need more housing is not the right answer. There is some common ground in between.

And a free market approach may sound attractive in theory, but I believe most people want a voice in how their surroundings evolve, especially when a considerable part of their income and/or net worth is probably tied up in it. Who among us is willing to say about our neighborhood, “Let the developers build what they want and the market will figure out if it’s the right thing”? No thank you.[/quote]
I think you’re creating a straw man argument. No one say we should let the developers do what ever they want. As I said, I think it would have been better if residences in 92130 can vote on projects. However, that’s not possible in the current system. So, we leave it up to the community planners to make those decisions.

As for common ground in between, I totally agree. Which is why I’m trying to see what the opponents to the project would prefer be built there. I’m intrigue to see what kind of common ground can be had.

As I also said, I’m not sure One Paseo is the right place with the right density. I think it would have been better to add a walk-able town center where Pacific Highland Ranch is with very high density and mixed used a long with industrial. Think along the line of Mountain View downtown as an example. But that boat has already sailed. So, if not One Paseo, where else can you add density to Carmel Valley?

[an]

Maybe it’s a little bit of both nimbyism and environmentalism. I also understand why people are opposing it. It’s not might fight, since it’s not my area. I was just voicing on opinion on what I think is needed for San Diego to grow. I’m glad Mira Mesa and Mission Valley are taking a totally different route. We’ll see how these areas play out 50 years from now.

[an]

The-Shoveler, flyer is right, there’s not very many buildable land left. You mention there are very many low density zoned area. However, they all have something on them already, so getting it rezoned is very difficult, expensive, and a lot of time, impossible, specifically due to NIMBYism.

[an]

carli, so, what you’re saying is, One Paseo is too dense. But yet, you also say there’s no public transit. You also say it’s impossible to stop the development and all of Carmel Valley are zoned to be not very dense. Which mean that you don’t mind that Carmel Valley will forever be a lower density area with no public transit, since there’s not enough density for a need for public transit. Am I understanding that correctly?

I think One Paseo might be huge in term of density, but not in space. I think Pacific Highland Ranch is much bigger, yet there’s not the kind of push back you see from One Paseo. What that’s tell me is that, people in Carmel Valley don’t mind the suburban sprawl that has been going on. Soon, Carmel Valley will be built out as well. Once it’s built out, it’ll be very hard if not impossible to upzone. I don’t have a dog in this fight, so it’s really up to what people in Carmel Valley want. Too bad they can’t have a special election for all the residence in 92130 to voice their opinion.

[an]

[quote=FlyerInHi]The problem with public transport first is that it’s a huge waste of money. You end up with buses and rail without any riders.

Successful public transport is added to already dense, congested neighborhoods. There a period of congestion and inconvenience, but that’s the price of progress.[/quote]Agree, you can’t build transport first, because as you said, it’ll be a big waste of $. With that said, the city planners can sit down with the developers to truly draw out the areas they want the developers to build high density, then put in plans for public transit stops around those areas. But then you’d need to add in caveats that these stations won’t be built until developers build the high density units. That would be the ideal way, but that would require a lot of fore thoughts and a lot of cooperation between all parties, which I don’t think would be a feasible thing, especially when we’re talking about about 30-50 years city planning. The other two options I think would be to either build density first, then transit will come or transit comes first, then density will come. Both have their problem. If you build density first, you’ll have problem like One Paseo, where people will say, see, no plans for transit, so too dense. If you build transit first, you’ll have issues like what’s going on on Bay Ho, where current owners are saying, no way to high density, even if there’s transit, because it’ll block their view and add too much traffic and ruin their feel of the neighborhood. So, there’s really no easy answer IMHO.

[an]

carli, are you saying then that we should freeze all building between Carmel Valley, PQ, and RB until we get public transit infrastructure in place? Or are you saying we should just keep on building, but low density housings?

[an]

[quote=spdrun]That’s not due to Lollipop itself, but some “customization” shitware that the manufacturer chose to ram down your throat.[/quote]Yep, I have no idea why OEM do this kind of stuff. Makes no sense to me.

[an]

Very cool map. Too bad it doesn’t have links to the different plans. The Carroll Canyon project they have is the Carroll Canyon strip mall on the Scripps Ranch side. The Carroll Canyon Master Plan I was referring to is actually in Mira Mesa off Camino Santa Fe and it’s a mixed used, high density/medium density development along with retail/commercial and industrial.

[an]

Like it or not, San Diego is already the 2nd most expensive city to live in, relative to income. Also, like it or not, San Diego is desirable and more people will move here, especially well off retiree. So, you really have two option, continue on the same path of suburban sprawl or increase density and build for what is to come. Keep in mind that San Diego is almost built out, so if we continue down this path, we’ll be completely built out sooner rather than later. Which mean that it will only get more expensive to live here once San Diego is completely built out and the baby boomers are hitting retirement age in earnest. We also have heard it here many times that the economy are not very vibrant here and that many are moving to LA or bay area for jobs. Some of us would like our kids and grand kids to be able to stay in San Diego and have plenty of opportunities. In order to have that kind of vibrant economy, you need a lot of people, a lot of universities, and a lot of venture money. We can’t control the venture money, but we can control where people live, how many people actually fit in the city/county and how many Universities are in this region.

So with that said, to answer the question of why San Diego need to emulate denser cities in order to be “world class”, because that’s just a natural progression of a world class city. It grows. As it grows, you can either build more housing for the new people or have them be priced out and only the rich and those who bought ages ago can afford to live there. I would much rather start building density today instead of decades down the road when you paint yourself into a corner. Personally, I think Pacific Highland Ranch would have been a much smarter place to build such density and town center. But too bad that didn’t happen.

[an]

[quote=flu][quote=AN][quote=flu]A coaster in Carmel Valley??? Oh hell no…. Not in my “hood”….

:)[/quote]
LoL, damn NIMBYer :-D[/quote]

Man, with a coaster stop in Carmel Valley, we’re going to get invaded by all the rift rafts from Mira Mesa.[/quote]Damn Mira Mesa rift rafts and their walls. Ruin everything for everybody else.

[an]

[quote=flu]A coaster in Carmel Valley??? Oh hell no…. Not in my “hood”….

:)[/quote]
LoL, damn NIMBYer 😀

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