William Lyons Feels Dove Canyon Plaza Rezone A Done Deal

This article assumes you are familiar with what is happening at Dove Canyon Plaza, if you aren't, please read this article first and the associated materials.

I arrived to the 10am open house at 9:45 to make sure I got a seat as all 250 reservations for this session were gone, as were the ones for the 1:30 session. I had two surprises upon arriving, the first was that the William Lyons rep that was handing out name badges already had mine out because he "recognized me from YouTube", so that means William Lyons reps are paying attention, considering this information is being shared in private groups, that means someone from the city who knows people at the company is sharing the information.

The second surprise was that all the chairs for people to sit for what was expected to be a presentation were gone, because it wasn't a presentation, it was a series of mockup boards for about a half dozen different proposals. An amazing amount of work had gone into something that was only just announced a few days ago. I liked what resident Tim Stone had to say and he wrote it before I did, so with his permission, I share it here:

"1). This is NOT a meeting. The Lyons company is showing displays with renderings of the various options for 150 to 175 densely packed townhomes. People who didn't get on the list are signing in, there is plenty of room, so go check it out. It won't take a lot of time, but you should consider what is happening here.

2). The company is proceeding as if this is a foregone conclusion. The people there today are consultants ( not from our community ) who were told the center failed so they developed housing options, working on the premise that the city has agreed to rezone. Not one person I talked with was familiar with the RSM City General Plan, the vision for RSM, or ever considered options to make this center perform better.

3). None of the plans provide for true recreation facilities. They are free standing, 3 story, townhomes just like Dahlia Court. ( Check out the DC ads ... they claimed it was located in the center of many parks and recreation spots; true but deceptive since they were all private ).

4). One consultant suggested the townhomes will likely start in the $700,000 to $800,000 range.

5). The ONLY way to comment really is to fill out a card. No one was there to listen to any concerns, or to answer in depth questions. Since none of these people actually reside in our city, our concerns are not theirs. ( Yes, I asked, and didn't find any local residents ).

6). When asked about the businesses that would be driven out, they had no idea which ones existed, or their history. There reply was "they can move" but when I asked "where" they had no clue. Where will the gym go ? Where will the Courtyard go ? How about the pre-school ? What about all the service based businesses ? M&C ? And who will pay the cost of relocating and buildouts in new property ? All of this received no response. Never assume a business can relocate. After many years of serving our community, they need better options."

William Lyons claims to have done no prep work so far, no traffic studies, soil studies, environmental impact studies, yet they have a half dozen proposals all set to go already, which seems to be putting the cart before the horse. When I asked one of the consultants that if 10,000 people showed up and didn't want the rezone but the city council approved it, what would they do. He said they'd build it because it was the city councils decision.

Governor Newsom is taking Huntington Beach to court over their lack of low income housing right now. There is a reasonable fear that if this property was to get rezoned, then the state could easily get overridden and turned into as high a density as possible low income housing, this was confirmed in a discussion with a city planner from a nearby city.

When this was a big topic during the 2016 election and the property owners met with residents, their proposal was 150-180 high density housing units, now they are up to nearly 400 units and 4 story buildings and if it ends up as state mandated low income housing, then all bets are off as to what can get built. Once that gets rezoned from commercial to residential, you can bet they are going to want to make as much as possible from their current $25 million investment. The only reason this center is struggling is because the owners have spent the last 2 1/2 years shorting leases and not signing new ones and forcing people out of business. The consultants new nothing of our city master plan, the housing element of the document states in part "Ensure that new residential development and modifications to existing development are compatible with surrounding neighborhoods." - this also happens to be the part that the city is trying to amend right now.

The only way this is going to be stopped is by overwhelming response by the residents of the city. The timing of this current movement couldn't be more clearly linked to the results of the last election. Hundreds of people need to show up at every city council and planning commission meeting between now and when this is defeated. The schedule of the meetings can be found on the city website. Interestingly, adding any living units to the city, now costs the city more money than they bring in, so there is no logical reason for it. Why is William Lyons so confident that this is a done deal? Too many things have been taking place in the shadows and it is time for a giant spotlight to be shown on these dealings and expose them for what they are. No one wants this development and if our city leaders ignore the will of the people, there should be consequences. Please get involved, email the city council, call, show up at meetings and speak in open comments, this item doesn't need to be on the agenda to talk about it.