Click image to enlarge.
Last week I announced a contest to identify a place in a picture. The prize: a $20 gift certificate to Amigos, 2000 Montana Avenue. (If there is better Mexican/Tex-Mex food in El Paso, I haven't found it.) The scenery in the picture no longer exists. That is why I asked for a place. The picture above is what you see today. It is on the west side of Mesa just past the new light at Montecillo and across the street from Montecillo. So much for El Paso protecting arroyos. One wonders how safe the deal with the City is regarding the NW Master Plan.
When our petition certified, a deal was struck with the City to redo the NW Master Plan as smart growth development. Land was transferred to the Franklin Mountains State Park. Arroyos will not only be preserved but roadways across them must be bridged.
Yesterday City Council voted unanimously to reassess whether land in the NW Master Plan, NE Master Plan and Painted Dunes can be sold off in increments of less than 100 acres (I guess never mind a Memorandum of Understanding with the PSB); and whether or not to reconsider smart code. (Emma Acosta and Carl Robinson spearheaded the affront on smart code.) After the Council meeting, City Manager Joyce Wilson offered assurances that "Council did not take any action to undo the updated master plan for NW area, and that we were clear that it was a settlement that should not be tampered with." In an email to me she went on to say that "the focus is really the NE master plan and the two [NW and NE] are just getting comingled. I have made it clear that your group bargained in good faith and expects the agreement to be honored."
However, in spite of her assurances, one must realize that Wilson's time with the City is about up and that she doesn't vote on zoning. Council didn't take any action on the NW plan but that doesn't mean that they won't. Moreover, this Council has already demonstrated that it favors sprawlers when it comes to discussions about growth, smart code, Plan El Paso, impact fees and land sales. The Mayor's office has kept all members of the conservation community out of discussions on land sales, impact fees and even considerations about the new City Manager. One can expect a City Manager who will be in line with those who want to sell and develop all the land that they can, believing that will be best for taxpayers in spite of the realization that our property taxes keep going up and up and up. Their building feeds their pockets, not ours.
I can tell you that my phone has not stopped ringing off the wall since Council voted yesterday. It's not just that yesterday was alarming (and it could be just by itself). It's a whole string of things.
The 2013 Petition (posted on another page) never really caught fire. Most of the signatures are over 180 days old and, so, invalid. Now there is a huge ground swell to do a new petition. People unexcited about the 2013 petition are suddenly excited. The energy is there.
What Council, the Mayor, the sprawlers, the Chamber must understand is this. We don't want to preserve land just because it's pretty. The biggest issue is water and a sustainable future for El Paso. Is there a discussion going on at City Hall about water? Hell no and, in fact, the build-it-one-way-only-ers pretty much killed the EPWU smart home idea. The other issue is healthy living. Allergies, asthma, respiratory illnesses have gone up because of development. Moreover, El Paso also suffers from an epidemic of diabetes and obesity. Studies throughout the country for many years now show that you can't grow your way to prosperity. All we are really doing is taking away the future for our grandchildren and their grandchildren. We are heading toward extinction.
So, with a vote to reconsider smart code in spite of assurances from a lame duck Manager, those who care about the future of water and the health of each and every El Pasoan are rightly alarmed and have begun to meet and mobilize.
Finally, a number of you had good guesses about the place for the picture in the contest. Only Judy Ackerman got it right. She emailed: "[It] is the place where the new theater is going in, across Mesa from the Montecillo. That’s how it used to look. Now it looks like sh--!"
Memo to Judy: I love Amigos. Remember your friends.
So odd, and so counterproductive to what a developer should want - growth that adds value, not subtracts it. And minimize impact on limited water-in-the-desert, etc.
ReplyDeleteJust Sunday, I was reminded of such a lack of coordination like where I moved from...good trails and open space, but no access from most parts of the trail network into neighborhoods...just 1-2 ingress/egress points. Not sure how this can be more seamless.
Though in the pricey Catalina Foothills area in Tucson last month, there is also very little access into the mountains from their developments. The one place I found, without requiring a longer drive, was between barbed wire fences...
SmartCode is not the only way to protect open space. That can be done with conventional planning, too. You just have to get the citizens active and adopt local initiatives that limit development. And then you have to watch your local politicians like hawks, and sue them when they start trying to get around the citizens-adopted laws. Google Friends of Riverside's Hills.
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