The Hammer Begins To Fall On Dove Canyon Plaza

Stick with me, there are going to be lots of images and links in this article and there is a lot that is going on. First thing to understand is that this re-zone request actually ties in with the TCA (Toll Roads) as they get Developer Fees for every home and office built in their service areas, this is essentially a tax that was not passed by any legislature and works out to about $6,000 per home.

William Lyons wants to build 125 homes, so they are looking at TCA developer fees of about $500,000. Keep in mind that RSM has paid $0 in developer fees this year and $86,000 last year (if the toll road extension to the 5 is done, then they are looking at nearly $100 million in developer fees, which is where the TCA makes its real money). Now keep in mind that our councilman Tony Beall is a partner at Troutman Sanders LLP, a real estate law firm that is currently involved in toll fee cases in Florida and Georgia and as a partner that means Beall would benefit from the profit. This matters because Beall is also on the TCA board where he has very passionately pushed against outside oversight of the TCA books as exposed in the LA Times expose here and here. These apparent conflicts would indicate that Beall should never sit on a toll road board and with the financial conflict for the TCA revenue on developer fees, he should recuse himself on any vote to rezone in that plaza. Now, with that lead in, let's get to the plaza itself.

An email went out last night from William Lyon about the Paloma Square project as they call it (the city has an FAQ here).

Remember, I told you this came in last night, it also showed up on the city website with useful details here. What was also interesting is that city manager Jennifer Cervantez is out of town this week and last nights city council meeting was cancelled.

Coincidence? Maybe, but moving on. If you look at the email and they talk about the outreach, I was at the meeting, they act like it was 2 different meetings, but it was the same meeting with 2 groups because of the number of people. Every single person was against any development and that is what all the comment cards said, but they pressed on. Notice how they said they met with SAMLARC? Well, I reached out to the CEO of SAMLARC this morning to ask, and here is what she said:

I think that probably speaks for itself, so let's move on. If you look at the Justification Letter that is included, Justification 1 says it is a dying center, but they have specifically been driving out business so that is why business is off, however the gym draws massive traffic which they cleverly made sure to film their propaganda video when it was closed. Then Justification 3 says that they will have LESS traffic with the homes than the current configuration. If it is a dead center, then how is there so much traffic that it would exceed 125 homes with 2 to 4 drivers per unit? This kind of redirection and misleading information is all through everything they've communicated so far. What about electricity and water for these homes? We are already asked to cut back, or are rationed or have rolling brown outs. The more burden you put on those grids, the worse it gets. Then we all know what kind of a traffic and parking nightmare this will open up. Property values and home sales are already being impacted, sales are sluggish and prices are $100,000 under what they were a year ago for homes near the entrance.

What can you do? Here is the sequence of events that is currently in play:

That means showing up at city council and planning commission meetings and speak, the schedule is here. It is my current belief that the votes in the pocket of William Lyons are Tony Beall, Carol Gamble and Anne Figueroa. Some of them might be having second thoughts now because of all the push back. It is also my belief that the original plan was to get this approved at the end of the current terms for Beall and Gamble and they would not run again, but they would have hand picked successors out of the current Planning Commission, and it is the Planning Commission that will give an initial thumb up or down for it to get to the city council, so we need to pay attention to those people and their votes as well.

Spread the word, get involved, show up at meetings, do whatever you can to raise awareness of this so we can stop it. The city council could have headed this off years ago but chose to do nothing instead. There are members of the council that will use slippery language to try and redirect you to another topic, much like when Bill Clinton was debating the meaning of the word "is".