Sunday, March 14, 2010
For starters, when he and his wife would venture down Pacific Coast Highway to the community 15 miles south of San Francisco to go surfing, they saw a fraction of the town and assumed that was all there was to it.
"For the longest time, we just thought of Pacifica as the area by the junction of Highway 1, Interstate 280 and Highway 35," he said. "But after living here, we realized it's more like three different coastal communities stitched together vertically down the coast."
In August, Chon and his family bought a home on the southern end of town, in a neighborhood called Linda Mar. Soon thereafter, another of his notions was debunked: that Pacifica is forever mired in the clouds.
"We were under the impression that this place always had fog," he said. "While we still get some down where we live, it's usually just in the late afternoons, and by the evening it burns off again."
Posted by Steve Sinai
21 comments:
Welcome to deadville Tim! Pacifica before the recession, or after the recession-- who could tell?
Welcome! Chon and Family. It may not always be sunny, most days cool and wet, but in the summer the fog rests, warmly on yer chest. It's St Patrick's Day, Pacifican's will celebrate, whether it be in the City or in yer home, Pacifica is always pretty. Welcome! Chon and Family. Hope your future is bright. Living in P-Town, is the best part of Life. Happy St.Patrick's Day! Today everyone is Irish.
"People like the fact the city has preserved its hills and that we have more than 50 percent dedicated open space," said Pacifica agent Suzan Getchell. "If it weren't for the community steadfastly holding on to that, we would have been built out like Daly City."
Suzan's statement may have been abbreviated for the Sunday article. Here's the map, include Mori Point, Pedro Point Headlands, Cattle Hill-- call it 60% now unproductive land which had belonged to Pacifica gone.
PACIFICA LAND GRAB
Daly City has built-out their land and as a result has the most tax revenue of all San Mateo County cities.
Pacifica was the largest land mass in San Mateo County. And because of the hills and the location no reason Pacifica would have built-out nearly the amount of land for retail and commercial use as Daly City. On the other hand, Pacicifica has no business parks, no center of town, services and jobs are minimum. We live with a highway that needs upgrading, utility overhead wires that need undergrounding, leaky sewer laterals (cost passed to citizens 6 years ago) and sewer collection pipes which need replacing, a city hall that is not even ADA compliant, road pot holes and streets that need major repair, minimum staffing of police, fire, public works, a huge debt, an inadequate sea wall north of town. Civic improvements are delayed, on hold or never, and groups of people volunteer their own time and money to hold this city together and make-up various basic city financial/cultural/service deficiencies. And, socially were a city divided.
Really think all this empty land is a big-time benefit? About 30% would be nice (too late for that), even the GGNRA Park Service representative said they never expected to receive so much of our land, and referred to Pacifica as "Park City". Personally I never expected to move into "Park City" either, did you?
We live in the poorest city in San Mateo County thanks to our current 8 year city council which could have made a difference, but they chose Smoky the Bear ahead of city and citizen "average" and expected needs.
Goodness gracious Kathy, Do you want to live in Daly City?
A lot of us don't. And if the theory of building out the hills worked, in terms of financing the city, then Daly City wouldn't have a $6 million budget deficit.
It does.
Why is that, Kathy?
Simple answer, Grasshopper:
If:
A = Revenues
and
B = Expenses
Then
If B > A
City = Pacifica or Daly City
next...
Maybe we can lien the Hippy's who didn't want anything in town, so we can fight off the City's coming bankrutpcy.
Pacifica doesn't have to be a concrete jungle like Daly City, but it could be a huge tourist draw like Capitola, Soquel, Half Moon Bay, and every other beach town up and down the coast.
A small coastal city should be just that, a small coastal city with sections of the highway that remain four lanes with wide shoulders for emergency vehicles. I do not like the idea of widening the highway from crespi to after valleymar. I do want the highway's fixed. Somehow we need to figure out how to keep that money to fix our infrastructure. Then we need to figure out how to get our children back to walking to school. Don't forget all the students who drive into town from out of Pacifica to attend our southern city schools.
Lionel, I'm not sure what you're saying in comparing the economy of Daly City #1 to Pacifica #0 (last in San Mateo county cities).
$6 million doesn't seem like a huge structural deficit considering the size of their economy, civic improvements, and capacity to recover from the current major recession.
Pacifica? Here in the backwater outback, Pacifica already spent what it claimed last year to be a "$4.5-7 million dollar reserve".
As you know there is no building "50-60% unproductive open space", which brings-in $0 tax revenue potential.
The issue has never been "do you want to live in Daly City?" your words. But, who signed-on to live in a failed city, without adequate services, without a balanced economy plan. Who voted for a city council that insure such failure?
Interesting, Kathleen mentioned the long proposed highway 1 bottle neck improvement, no "fair share" money for that either-- failure to plan for city infrastructure improvement, delayed repairs, crisis management. Truly this is a city council management void of a vision compatible with the needs of maintaining our city for the general good of our people.
Ms. Meeh is factually incorrect. Pacifica has received more in Measure A highway funds through a program called 'local share' than it has contributed. Pacifica has been given more because of population density and the accumulative miles of roads that beehive through the town.
It would be interesting to look at plans people of Ms. Meeh's persuasion have for the city, real or imagined, rather than the wailing wall of noise they feel duty bound to throw up like pooh flinging monkeys.
"...the wailing wall of noise they feel duty bound to throw up like pooh flinging monkeys."
How poetic! How McKuen! McKuen? McCune? Is that you oh poet laureate of Pacifica? Have we been blessed with anonymous verse and metaphor from the man who "never posts anonymously"? Please, tell me it is you Rod, I mean Tod. This blog is such a magical place...
"...people of Ms. Meeh's persuasion..."
Todd, do you think Ms. Meeh is a negro?
"...pooh flinging monkeys."
Same question.
Ah, the musty scent of puffery (statements based on opinion not fact)! It takes but lint from a pair of smelly socks to pull the wool over your eyes.
Anonymous moron, to improve the highway the city will need to fund bonds, the city doesn't otherwise have the money, but does have a large debt. Hey, if you don't want to call that fact, live in your own unidentified, imaginary world.
If it's fact that in order to widen the highway the city will have to go even deeper in debt, then a fiscally responsible Council would stop the project.
Oh ha, ha. A fiscally responsible City Council would have been finding ways to pay for city infrastructure needs of this city over the past 8 years, rather than not supporting or rejecting significant economic developments available to this city. Highway 1 improvement has been stopped for at least 8 years during the entire tenure of the current city council-- and, debt and failure to address other infrastructure deficiencies way up during the same tenure.
Then you agree that it's fiscally irresponsible to do the widening project because it will plunge the city even deeper into debt.
Hurray for debt without a plan to repay, this city council loves it. It clear the highway bottle neck needs fixing and has for the past several years (maybe 8), so whatever is determined to be the best practice solution go for it-- or is it better to wait until the rising ocean tides take-out Highway 1? Meantime properties along that highway strip cannot be sold.
On the other hand, got a better solution? "Nothing for Pacifica", continuing to sit in highway traffic wasting time you could be doing something else, polluting the air, and potentially blocking through Emergency vehicles may work better for some members of this community.
Of course, the #1 complaint against developing the quarry for needed city economic improvement was TRAFFIC-- ring-around-the-rosy...nothing gets done, the city falls down.
That could be the mantra for the Congress, too.
"The issue has never been "do you want to live in Daly City?" your words."
Yes indeed, my words. I don't want to live in our fine neighbor to the north. And you didn't answer my question: If things are so great in property development-land, why is it that every city in the county is in trouble? That includes, but is not exclusive to Daly City.
That may be because the cover-the-hills-with-houses model sucks bigtime in terms of sustainability.
It just doesn't work. Got a better model?
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