Silicon Valley Mercury News/Associated Press/Scott Sonner, 5/5/13. "Land trusts pooling money to pay for court battles."
| Evil developers didn't get Mori Point |
Alliance president Rand Wentworth says the new concept
allows land trusts to pool their resources and help level the playing
field in legal fights with "wealthy developers who want to pave over
paradise." "As land values rise, land trusts will face
increasing litigation from deep pocked opponents who are able to bleed
them dry to develop conserved land," said Wentworth, a former commercial
real estate developer himself.
The land trusts protect a
wide variety of properties, from wildlife habitat, forests, parks and
shorelines, to farms, ranches, gardens and historic battlefields. Only four states are not represented in the group—Arkansas, Minnesota, North Dakota and Oklahoma. California's
53 land trusts are the most in any state, protecting a total of more
than 700,000 acres in parcels stretching from the Sierra Nevada to the
Pacific Coast." Read article.
Related - Pacifica Land Trust.
Posted by Kathy Meeh
Related - Pacifica Land Trust.
Posted by Kathy Meeh
21 comments:
yes, those nimbys and nobees are just about everywhere. hey, Arkansas is safe. i bet they have big wide roads. convoy!
You forgot to mention the rich out of town developers.
If you have walked this long path into the ocean edge part of Mori Point, you might wonder what was the big eco deal about "saving" all 110 acres of Mori Point for frogs eaten by snakes.
Driving highway 1, don't you wonder what this highways side land might have been as part of a unifying downtown area? The other part being the quarry of course.
Because the hippies realize how much money no building on all of Mori's Point brings into the town bank account.
Kathy remember the 3 Gremlin rules.
No water
No food after midnight
No bright lights
Also can be applied to Internet trolls.
Mori Point was a great location for a casino and a destination restaurant with probably the best view on the SM coast. Pacifica's money woes would have been over. Look what we did with it instead. Nothing. And it's going to be nothing forever. How many people have been able to enjoy that view?
Very few. Does the enviro idealogy smack of just a little elitism? Did we really have to give everything away? Mori Point could have paid the bills for the rest of the failed idealogy that has doomed Pacifica. Downhill all the way.
Development of Mori's Point or the quarry doesn't have to be sold as "a unifying downtown area". Highway One running through Pacifica put an end to this downtown fable decades ago. Plenty of other excellent reasons for development.
It probably goes without saying that Pacifica was never designed to be a city with any kind of cohesiveness such as a viable, centrally located downtown. This is understandable as the City's origins were comprised of five separate villages that eventually became incorporated into Pacifica many years too late to be a logically designed community.What we have is a bunch of individual entities, each unique in its own way. What we are faced with is how to utilize these entities to the best advantage of all Pacificans. There needs to be some further, carefully planned development to increase the City's financial stability or we're going to tax ourselves out of existence. With that, we need to also dedicate a certain amount of open space that is the reason many of us were attracted to Pacifica in the first place. It's a tough act to balance though. All along the California coast are many towns that were charming a generation or two ago, but now are so overbuilt that the charm has irrevocably dissipated. I would think most of us don't want to go that direction as we'll never get that charm back again. Frankly, in my opinion, even the ill- planned beach parking is too SOCAL for my tastes.
Even developing the lower 1/3rd of Mori's Point would have brought in badly needed revenue.
The beach parking is ill-planned, but oh so chic politically. The idea gained momentum initially because people ignorantly assumed the money raised could go to the general fund and be used by the city for general expenses and that this city could set the rates. Not true. The money raised has to stay on the beach and rates are subject to approval by the state and CCC overseers. That was the time to scrap the whole idea.
Enter the plovers, their bodyguards, fences, tickets, rogue parking...your basic Pathetica clusterfutz. Paid parking at the beach will optimistically cover the expenses of this plover sanctuary and its staff. If we're very lucky it'll offset the $160,000 in current beach maintenance costs. C'mon, how often is Pacifica lucky?
12:29 PM, 12:36 PM, NIMBY myth. Mori Point and the quarry are the geographical heart of the city, and there WAS plenty of space to develop a great unified downtown area.
The next possible half effort to develop a partial downtown could be the quarry. Or something else? Well, develop for economic revenue of course. Peebles tried, some of you, your councilmembers, your Sierra Club friends made sure that project died. We won't forget.
So, Anonymous 12:29 PM, where did you say highway 1 through Pacifica should run? Where's your house?
@1236 Agree with you about the very real barriers that will always prevent Pacifica from being one cohesive town, but as far as charm, it's lost on me. What we have become is a run-down eyesore unable to sustain our "charms".
Thanks to earlier decision-makers we have an abundance of open space. The problem is that their tunnel-vision created a town that almost defies revenue-generating development. Not an accident. All we have left is a hodge-podge of in-fill opportunities and the quarry which is amply protected by multiple regulatory agencies and its proximity to a sewage treatment plant. Infill is slow and incremental income for any city. Unless someone swoops in to re-invent one of our designated shopping areas (with/without sewage overflow basin)), there aren't any big bangs left for Pacifica.
So much for charm.
Oh, Kathy, Kathy, Kathy. It's always the same with you. The forest and the trees and you.
Well, holy cow! Mori Point and the quarry are the geographical heart of the city. Ms. Meeh, how about a plaque designating same? Just like the one in a pasture in Belle Fourche, South Dakota, marking it as the geographical center of the USA.
Touting the quarry as a new downtown is ridiculous. It should be developed for revenue, period! It'll be no more of a downtown than Manor of Palmetto or Linda Mar. Development is good for Pacifica. No need to gild that lily!
"The forest and the trees and you." Anonymous 2:13 PM. The difference for you (assuming you're part of the NIMBY crowd) is you may have burned down the "forest and the trees" leaving the city few options to survive (much less thrive).
"No need to gild that lily!" Anonymous 2:28 PM. You must be referring to your own unfocused comment? About "revenue", what do you have in mind for the quarry? Is it that 90% open space, 10% small shops (hiking trail gear) from Pacificans for Sustainable Development? Yes, I saw that plan years ago. That "plan" would not have produce much revenue with the 25 year redevelopment advantage, much less now. But then, sounds like you have "all the answers", so do give us some vision specifics. I can hardly wait to see if you are rude but sincere, or just another visiting joker.
The noobees nimbys and hippies burned down the city to save the forest and the trees!
Nimbys don't burn trees, they hug them.
Kathy, most sincerely, developing the quarry and any of the other scraps left to develop is good. Better than good. It's essential. That has nothing to do with this downtown thing. Pacifica is a bunch of rapidly deteriorating neighborhoods strung along a freeway and as such has been downtown-proof for 40 years or more. So be it. Put some big retail in the quarry, food, entertainment and lets try to draw not just from Pacifica but from south of the slide and Daly City because I don't think Pacifica alone will support such stores. Not one more nail salon or store with hand-lettered signs. Maybe some housing in there and certainly in-fill housing and businesses like that elusive assisted-living facility wherever else there's a scrap of land.
It's a dream and you and I both know that. Obama will appoint Bachmann his Chief of Staff before any life-changing development happens here.
My dream is a premium outlet shopping center in the quarry. Sigh.
There, there Anon @ 5:18 PM, Daddy's gonna buy you a reusable shopping bag.
au contraire....
Nobies most certainly do smoke trees, rolled up in Zig Zags.
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