Video: HMB City Council considers not improving Hwy 1 at Terrace

SETTLEMENT AGREEMENT OR SWEETHEART DEAL? PT 1

Last week the City Council announced their unanimous decision on the Pacific Ridge housing project. Since 2004, the City, Coastal Commission and Ailanto, the developer, have had a “settlement agreement” (settling a number of developer lawsuits) that allows Ailanto to build 63 large homes above the high school, using Terrace Avenue as sole permanent access, IF a stoplight is built at Terrace and Highway 1.

That plan was inadvertently torpedoed by an environmental impact report (EIR) the developer
provided the City last fall, which despite its intended effect, instead showed that a stoplight at Terrace faced grave difficulties, including destruction of wetlands.

In response, as a Council member announced at the November workshop, the City promptly began to look for ways to allow the developer to build the 63 houses, WITHOUT building a stoplight at Terrace and Highway 1.

Toward that end, did the City attorney privately convince the Council to exercise paragraph 7(d) of the settlement agreement, an escape clause allowing the City to take a letter of credit from the developer for the stoplight, so that the developer can get started on the project without first building the stoplight?

The motion passed by the Council last week had two parts: first, to take the letter of credit from the developer for the expense of the stoplight, and second, to stop working on the City’s investigation of whether the Terrace stoplight should in fact be built.

Isn’t that a contradiction? Why would the City take a letter of credit for a project they are no longer considering?  Why would the City not finish the almost completed EIR process (after so much time, expense and effort have been invested) and, using the facts it contains, make an informed decision whether a stoplight at Terrace should be permitted?

To answer this question, the reader must imagine, from the Council’s perspective, what awkward things would happen if the City were to complete the EIR process.

First, the City would need to address the public comments on the EIR and Terrace stoplight, valuable criticism that measures over an inch thick. The way the Council is working it, the public’s comments can go straight to the shredder without response.

Second, by finalizing and accepting the EIR, the City would be stuck with the study’s findings,
especially the delineated wetlands.  That would be doubly awkward, since the developer and City Council have insisted the reason they can’t build Foothill Boulevard, the Coastal Commission’s previously required permanent access for Pacific Ridge, is because of...you guessed it, supposed wetlands.  Based on Ailanto’s own EIR, the Council would have no choice but to turn down the developer’s application for a Terrace stoplight permit.

The beauty of not finalizing and accepting the Terrace EIR for the Council, is that if they decide to build a Terrace stoplight in the future, the Council can direct their Planning Director to determine that a negative declaration is sufficient for the project, avoiding the need for an EIR.  Then, the EIR, never accepted by the City, effectively disappears from the public record, and its findings become completely irrelevant.  Neat, huh?

The next big question is whether the Coastal Commission will accept a settlement agreement whose heart, the Terrace stoplight, has been carved out. Chances are they will, because it preserves the Commission’s lot retirement scheme from further legal scrutiny.

The public, especially the hapless residents of Highland Park, are left out in the cold, with nothing but questions:
Did the Council’s personal relationships with the developers cloud their judgment?  Should
Council members recuse themselves from consideration of permit applications from longstanding friends or acquaintances?

Did the Council instruct their staff to stop working on the EIR last week, or was the work stopped months ago, when the EIR didn’t give them the findings they wanted?  If staff has been working continuously since last fall on the EIR, can the public see and review what they did?

Why did none of the Council ever object to the settlement agreement’s corrupt gag order on City
staff, requiring them to support the Terrace stoplight, regardless of their real opinions?  Is staff still required to support the stoplight?

Where is the Planning Commission in all of this? Why haven’t they ever addressed any of these issues? Why is the Council fear mongering about the dire consequences of simply turning down the stoplight application, on the basis of the developer’s own EIR, and returning to the negotiating table and court if necessary?  Isn’t the developer’s legal beef in fact with the Coastal Commission, who in 2001 placed conditions on the Pacific Ridge permits that the developer immediately sued over? 

Coastside politicos, not known for their reticence, have been strangely quiet on last week’s decision.  Is there an unspoken alliance between the Old Guard, who are accomplished giveaway artists, especially when dealing with developer friends, and the No Growth crowd, who admire the Council’s decision because it would forever eliminate Foothill Boulevard, which they see as growth-inducing?

And finally, is it too obvious for words, that the Council’s plan is to allow 63 oversized houses, without any mitigation or public benefit?  Is it any wonder that Half Moon Bay is filled with tract housing, overcrowded thoroughfares, and a hodgepodge of infrastructure and amenities?

What I don’t understand about the Terrace intersection is this: My sister worked on the Highland Park subdivison and the Beechwood subdivision back in 89’. At the time of the Highland Park build out, Silver Ave. was REQUIRED by CalTrans to be designed wide enough to accomodate a light and larger traffic flow. (You might notice that this intersection is MUCH wider than the Terrace Ave. intersection). John Pepper Properties had to deposit money for this light. I remember that the deeds for homes on Silver Ave. specified that Silver would be the ‘through’ street. Terrace was to be made into a dead-end street. What happened to this plan?? I must have missed out on something here in the last 17-19 years since Highland Park was built...Can someone fill me in as to what happened to this plan (and the money for the Silver Ave. light)?

There were 18 citizens who spoke on the Terrace Avenue Signal light item. 17 out of 18 asked the City Council to follow through with the local EIR/CDP process for the Terrrace traffic light rather than pull the plug on that process and accept a letter of credit (for $2.5 million) from the developer. The EIR process is now in limbo.

The City has agreed to accept $2.5 million in funding for a possible future traffic light at Terrace, but the City has suspended work on the EIR for that traffic light. The true “project” that the City is contemplating involves 63 new homes on Terrace and the possibility of a new traffic light at Terrace--with the light to be built in the future, but only if the City decides to use the $2.5 million for that purpose.

The California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) says that you cannot segment a project into smaller pieces and then study the environmental impacts separately of one another. It seems like that is what’s going on here. The 63 homes are the first piece of the project and the traffic light is the second piece of the project.

No one seems to address what harm NOT putting in a traffic light does to other coastside residents that the light would benefit. For instance extending the frontage road north would be a great benefit to the Casa Del Mar residents who can’t make a left turn North without taking their life in their hands or even turning into the narrow unmarked entrance, it would have given us another in & out of our neighborhood. Terrace & 1 is a disaster as is maybe it would improve traffic flow if the lights on 1 would ever get coordinated. Maybe all this is a ploy so the homes dont get built.Homes were built to west & east of me & no one cared [this before the sacred frog & snake were invented]. A street in my neighborhood asked for & recieved traffic calming bumps so that the traffic could un calm themselves by speeding down other streets. No one wants new homes in their neighborhood with the added congestion it brings but i met a lot of nice people that moved into mine after i did.
Sorry Terace people. you know what im told when i whine “ Yah dont like it move! Yeah, after 37+ years on the coast.

I still say that all this talk about signal/no signal is a distraction from the real issue:  the Vesting Tentative Map (VTM) is expired.  There’s a solid court decision saying so.  Why doesn’t the City and the Coastal Commission simply say to the developer “your subdivision is gone.”?  Oh, the developer will sue (again).  Who cares?  He’ll lose (again).  The Coastal Commission has money to defend that lawsuit, and they will prevail.  If 0 houses are built instead of 63, the whole Terrace traffic issue disappears.

Yes, if the subdivision goes away due to the expired VTM, the developer can submit a new request for subdivision.  However, with the public watching this time, the City won’t be able to approve it because they can’t make the necessary findings that State law requires for approval of new subdivisions.  (The findings likely couldn’t have been made back when the current subdivision was approved, but nobody was paying attention back then.)

In answer to Suzy Kristan’s question, I heard that before the Silver signal could be built, the North Main Street signal for the entrance to Strawflower shopping center was built, and CalTrans won’t allow two signals that close together.  More recently I’ve heard claims that the elevation difference between the highway and Silver is too big of a problem.  I could either say “that’s an easily fixable problem”, or I could say “hogwash”.  Just look at the place—isn’t Silver built all the way out to the highway now, just blocked off?

And why can’t Silver be made into an entrance-only intersection and Terrace into an exit-only intersection, or maybe the other way around?

Or… I’ll say it again: Michigan Left Turn, which as a necessary side effect would result in solving the problem for the Grandview and Casa del Mar subdivisions.  CalTrans has a 150 foot wide right of way to work with.  If you study the diagram at the above link, and visualize a single through lane instead of two in each direction shown in the diagram, it easily fits in the 150 foot RoW.  It’s even possible that there’s room for two through lanes in each direction in a 150 foot RoW.

I’ve been told “Michigan Left Turn isn’t in CalTrans’ book and they won’t do it.” Well, Tunnel wasn’t in their book either, and when they were prohibited by law from building the bypass, suddenly they found the “building a tunnel” pages in their book.  CalTrans’ book doesn’t mean diddly.  It also describes requirements for turns to be banked, yet CalTrans doesn’t build banked turns.  I heard that in New York, you can go around banked freeway turns at full freeway speed.  Not so in California, because CalTrans doesn’t read their own book.

Sam.  Your point is right smack dab on the issue of safety. What is just as important as the signal light is the road improvements that will assure safety and keeping the evening bottleneck from working backwards onto Hwy. 92.

Please watch the video. Many of the speakers addressed this issue. I even made the point that neither the Terrace ave. protesters, Ailanto properties nor the City Council were concerned about the safety of all coastsiders. Lo and behold I was proven right by the actions they took.

By the way, where was Marina Frasier at this most important issue as she was a “no show” at this particular meeting.