City plans to rezone vacant land for auto dealerships hit a
serious snag Tuesday night when residents showed up in force to
demand a halt to the process.
City plans to rezone vacant land for auto dealerships hit a serious snag Tuesday night when residents showed up in force to demand a halt to the process. The land is between East Dunne Avenue’s Courtesy Chevrolet, Lyon’s Restaurant and Walgreen’s Drug Store and a residential area to the north.
Because the neighbors’ response was entirely negative, the city has put a temporary stop to the plan and will take another look at what would work – and gain neighbor approval in the Walnut Grove neighborhood.
The city is considering auto dealerships to increase its sales tax revenue. Auto dealerships bring an average of $250,000 a year from sales taxes into the city treasuries across the state.
The city sponsored the meeting at the community center to inform the residents that the land might be rezoned from residential to commercial, allowing up to three more auto dealerships to cluster near Courtesy and the up-coming Ford Store east of Highway 101. Joyce Maskell, manager of Business Assistance and Housing Services (BAHS), said about 55 people showed up.
Frank Dicker, who lives on Rosemary Circle, off Diana Avenue, said Thursday that he and several other residents who spoke at the meeting have three primary problems with the deal: rezoning, connecting Diana with Dunne Avenue and the way the city notified – or didn’t – residents of the affected area.
“What the auto row will do to housing prices is to lower them,” Dicker said. “Some of the houses on Serene Drive are worth $1 million. Any one of them near the noise and light of an auto row will definitely take a dip.”
No amount of controlled downlighting, reduced sound or greenbelt berming will completely hide the rows and rows of cars, not usually associated with quiet, residential districts.
A proposed road connecting the major East Dunne thoroughfare with Diana Avenue also has the neighbors up in arms. Currently the only way to reach the neighborhood is from Butterfield Boulevard on the west or Calle Mazatan from the north. Dicker says they like it that way.
“This is not why we moved here, to have a lot of major entrances and exits,” Dicker said.
Mark Sumf of ROEL Auto Advisory Group and Rick Cartel of Autopilot Development Services, consultants hired by the city to investigate land use possibilities that would appeal to auto dealers and include some mixed use retail, presented the neighbors with four options, two of which had been favored by the city council and property owners. The neighbors favored none.
The consultants are being paid $80,000.
A southern entrance would speed fire, police and ambulance response times to the area, Dicker said he was told at the meeting.
“We have not had a problem with fire and police response,” he said. “Rosemary Circle is a safe street with lots of kids living in a fearless state of mind and the minute they start opening the street up, that will change.”
He said he doesn’t see any other sensible way for the two streets to connect except through Rosemary Circle.
The third bone of contention revolved around the post card the city sent to all residents in the neighborhood. Dicker said many people either did not receive them, didn’t read them or threw them away not realizing their importance.
“We felt that the post card mailed out was a slimy way to protect themselves as a way to inform the people,” he said.
Dicker suggested sending a formal letter in future. A city logo on a business letter would possibly get more attention.
The city has notified residents in other areas by letter, most recently property owners along Tennant Avenue over the Urban Limit Line study, but those residents complained to the ULL committee that a letter was not enough.
Dicker said he would have more confidence in the rezoning and promises to make any auto dealers toe the line for appearance, noise and light, if the city kept after businesses that are in place now.
“The Lyon’s Restaurant landscaping (on East Dunne Avenue between Walgreen’s and Chevron) is full of weeds,” he said. “It looks terrible. What is the city doing about that?”
In the case of Ford and the next two auto dealers who come to town, sales taxes received will be less because of the incentive program put in place by the “auto strategy” the City Council approved in 2003, allowing up to $1 million in tax rebates over a 10 year period.
Maskell says that no dealers have been named; the meeting and rezoning talks are a response to the “auto strategy.”
The Ford incentive package would give Tim Paulus’ Ford dealership up to a maximum total of $1,225,000 over 10-years in sales tax rebates from the city.
Tuesday was not the first time citizens banded together to roust the idea of auto dealerships moving in nearby. In 2003 residents who live behind Nordstrom Park kicked up enough dust to cause County Supervisor Don Gage to extract a promise from Mayor Dennis Kennedy that Ford would be the only dealer to locate on the Condit Road property north of Dunne.
Since auto dealers prefer to “cluster” together, the Walnut Grove area next to Courtesy was a natural second. Land next to Highway 101 behind Safeway and Home Depot, also on East Dunne, was designated as a backup by the council.
Maskell said that, because of neighbor reaction and the need to rethink the project, a second neighborhood meeting planned for early June, would probably be put on hold.
