Chiquita Ridge - What's up with that?

Not everyone in RSM is familiar with Chiquita Ridge, where it is or what it is about, so first a brief history, and just in case you don’t read to the end, know that the city has spent somewhere north of $3 Million on it so far already. When the city incorporated in 2000, it was felt that there was another 502 acres that the city should have gotten from the County, so they entered litigation eventually in 2005 when they couldn’t come to an agreement. Eventually an agreement was signed on January 28, 2009 that broke down the space as follows:

• 410 acres are added to O’Neill Park to be forever preserved as open space
• 100 acres are declared as local protected open space as part of the Dove Canyon Preservation Easement
• 15 acres were purchased by the City and transferred to the County as part of O’Neill Park
• 92 acres became City-owned

Those 92 acres came with stipulations. Only 55 of those 92 acres are usable for development. Of those 55, a minimum of 23 acres must be a sports park, it can be more, but it must be that big at least. The remaining space can be left empty or developed with homes, commercial property, or sold off for development by someone else. You can read the entire settlement agreement here.

Part of the settlement was that RSM was now responsible for a non-contiguous and unrelated piece of property off of Oso Parkway for “Habitat Restoration” that seems to be in perpetuity. Reading through the city financial ledgers (acquired through public records requests), this appears to have cost in the millions of dollars so far.

This city supplied map that shows exactly where Chiquita Ridge is. Try to picture the access to that center and how that will work. There is nowhere to put entrance/exit points, the hills along Antonio Parkway between Canada Vista Park and Meandering Trail will have to be flattened or cut through. That entire area will have the hills cut down and the ravines filled up to make a flat space between Antonio Parkway and the 241 toll road.

There has been analysis after analysis, 5 companies so far and a variety of development submissions performed so far. You can read the timeline here and listen to this snippet of presentation from July 2016 where the council is told that CostCo isn’t interested and the most recent study from Hundon Partners in late 2016 confirmed that.

As of the time of this writing in February 2017, Hundon Partners is doing something that for some reason has never been done in the 8 years and millions of dollars that has been spent have done. They are talking to the sports leagues in the area and are supposed to run an online survey for residents to express their interest or lack of interest in developing Chiquita Ridge. It’s great that this is finally happening, but when you look at the timeline of what has been going on and hiring consultant after consultant that basically keep saying the same thing, it is clear there has been no vision on the part of the City Council with regard to this property. They want it because they want it, not because there was any proven need or desire for it. There has been 2 meetings between Hundon and various sports leagues so far and all but the Lacrosse say they are adequately served by existing parks, the Lacrosse needs special fields and play at the new Lake Forest sports park or in Irvine.

Speaking of Lake Forest sports park. It is my understanding that the cost was north of $40 Million to build and they had far less landscape and road issues to deal with. We can probably assume at least that much money to build a sports park in Chiquita Ridge. An unintended consequence of that development can be that existing leagues in RSM would move there, that means the fees they pay that help finance the upkeep in RSM through SAMLARC would no longer be realized, which could necessitate a rise in SAMLARC HOA fees to residents. Consider also that we only just ended a very long drought, it seems irresponsible to build additional water hogs when we are likely to be back in drought conditions again by the time the park could be finished.

It is my opinion that it is time to stop the madness and bleeding with Chiquita Ridge, maybe open up some hiking trails and just stop. There isn’t anything that anyone really wants there. Give the land back to the County, we don’t need it and it’s just a money pit. We have 4 CostCos and 2 Walmarts within a 15 minute drive. We have business closing constantly in town due to various issues either on the part of the business or the landlord's making outrageous rent increases suddenly. We have plenty of shops empty. We're talking a minimum of 1600 parking spaces and 2.4 million square feet in this proposed development.

This is the perfect time to let the city council know your opinion on the subject since this is the first time they’ve bothered to ask. A petition is going around that you can sign now in advance of the Hundon survey that will be coming in the next few months, it can be found here. You can and should also email the council directly to let them know your opinions. Maybe you disagree with me, you should let them know that too. This is a big deal, it is very impactful, get involved now while you still can.

TBeall@cityofrsm.org
CGamble@cityofrsm.org
BMcGirr@cityofrsm.org
MVaughn@cityofrsm.org
JHolloway@cityofrsm.org