CHANGES MADE: The Planning Commission will recommend to the Board of Supervisors to remove Neighborhood 1 (Lee Lake North) from the project and to change the zoning on Neighborhood 2 (Lee Lake South) to a Mixed Use Area (MUA), allowing for commercial retail and services with only 30 percent of the neighborhood slated for apartments.
Following a lengthy Oct. 5 county Planning Commission public hearing, the five commissioners voted to recommend to the Board of Supervisors to place only 258 apartments in Temescal Valley instead of the 1,200 that were proposed.
Led by District 1 Commissioner Charissa Leach, who also is the commission’s chairwoman, the recommendation is to remove the smaller Lee Lake North neighborhood from the project that was planned for 340 apartments, and change the proposed zoning on the larger Lee Lake South neighborhood to MUA (mixed use area), with only 258 apartments instead of the 860 that were proposed. (See the story below for background information on the projects.)
The MUA zoning calls for commercial retail uses with a predetermined percentage of the total acreage devoted to HHDR (highest density residential) zoning. Throughout the county where MUAs have been proposed, the HHDR percentage has been set at 50 percent. The Lee Lake South neighborhood will be only 30 percent HHDR.
The decision was made after the commission received 212 comments from Temescal Valley residents largely citing the lack of infrastructure to support 1,200 apartments. Additionally, 18 Temescal Valley residents attended the hearing to voice their comments in person. A representative of the owner of the Lee Lake North property also spoke in opposition to the new zoning.
After the public hearing was closed, commissioners discussed the issue and Leach said she agreed with residents’ concerns about inadequate infrastructure. She asked Deputy Planning Director Kristi Lovelady if possibly there was another location where the HHDR zoning proposed for Temescal Valley could be placed. It was determined that the Good Hope unincorporated community, also in county District 1, would be a more suitable location for additional dwelling units than Temescal Valley.
With the Planning Commission’s recommendations, it was noted that the final decision to be made on the Housing Element’s General Plan Amendment 1122 will be by the Board of Supervisors possibly at its Dec. 6 meeting.
People from Temescal Valley who spoke at the hearing were Larissa Adrian, Carol Martinez, Pamela Giandalia, Lisa Welter, Chiku Patel, Gemma Carpio and David Cook – all from Sycamore Creek; Terry Morairty and Brien Clingman – Weirick Road neighborhood; Tracy Davis and Jannlee Watson – Wildrose Ranch; Kelli Noss – Horsethief Canyon Ranch, and Michael Brazeau – Montecito Ranch. Attending but not speaking were Penny and Greg Tucker – Sycamore Creek; Aime Kinne – Dawson Canyon; Roberta Tandy – Trilogy, and John Watson, Wildrose Ranch.
Glen Nelson, Wildrose Ranch resident, authored the We Are Temescal Valley comments sent to the Planning Commission on behalf of the group and signed by Jerry Sincich, Development Committee chairman and Jannlee Watson, Communications Committee chairwoman. That three-page correspondence can be read HERE.
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(Published Sept. 25, 2016)
HOW TO VOICE YOUR OPINION
Send your email now to: Phayvanh Nanthavongdouangsy at pnanthav@rctlma.org
- CLICK HERE for a form letter that can be copied and pasted into an email
EMAILS AND LETTERS SHOULD BE RECEIVED BY TUESDAY, OCT. 4
Or snail-mail comments to:
Phayvanh Nanthavongdouangsy
Att: Planning Department (12th Floor)
Riverside County Administration Center
4080 Lemon Street
Riverside, CA 92501
- CLICK HERE to print a hard copy that can be mailed
NOTE: If you can, please consider attending the Planning Commission public hearing at 9 a.m. on Wednesday, Oct. 5. It is always more effective if comments are made at the public hearing. The meeting will be at the county’s Administrative Center, 4080 Lemon St., Riverside. ___________________________________________________________________________________________________MORE INFORMATION:
- CLICK HERE for the county’s PowerPoint presentation at the Sept. 14 MAC meeting
- CLICK HERE to view the county’s 13-point criteria used in selecting locations
- Read the story below
- Read comments from Temescal Valley resident Kelli Noss below the story
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(Published Sept. 6, 2016; updated Sept. 25, 2016)
Temescal Valley is one of 23 unincorporated areas tagged for affordable housing as county updates its General Plan
Temescal Valley might be getting a zone change that would allow construction of 1,200 affordable apartments.
Riverside County is updating its General Plan Housing Element to rezone areas throughout the unincorporated communities to accommodate the state’s mandate for more affordable housing.
For this Housing Element cycle, an estimated 23,794 dwelling units are needed for people in the “Extremely Low and Very Low” and “Low” income categories, including entry-level job seekers, seniors and veterans.
The proposed Temescal Valley area is on the east side of the I-15, immediately south of Indian Truck Trail, west of Temescal Canyon Road and across from Lee Lake. The parcels within the area total about 40 net acres.
To answer the state mandate, the county is creating two new land-use designations – HHDR (highest density residential, R-7 zoning), and MUA (mixed use area, MU zoning).
HHDR would allow between 20 to 40 dwelling units per acre, but the county is using a default density of 30 dwelling units per acre. The R-7 zoning would allow structures taller than three stories, but not to exceed 75 feet in height.
The rezoned areas throughout the county are being referred to as “neighborhoods.” The 40 acres in Temescal Valley have been divided into two neighborhoods which have been labeled “Lee Lake North” and “Lee Lake South.”
While neighborhoods designated HHDR are geared to residential use with amenities such as parks, pathways and recreational facilities, MUAs allow the HHDR use to be combined with a wide-ranging mix of commercial and job-producing services. The proposed land use within Temescal Valley is solely HHDR.
(NOTE: Since the Aug. 3 public hearing when the affordable housing plan was presented to the county Planning Commission, the Lee Lake North community is now being recommended by county staff as a MUA development. The 12.85 gross acres would call for a multi-storied development with the housing built above the commercial shops and services constructed on the ground floor. The 33 gross acres in the Lee Lake South community will remain 100 percent HHDR.)
The neighborhoods are within the Lake Elsinore Unified School District and students would attend Luiseno and Temescal Canyon High schools.
In choosing the affordable housing locations, the county identified sites located in 10 area plans which include 23 unincorporated communities. The county devised a 13-point support factor criteria within each community for the locations of the neighborhoods.
The key to the criteria was the “walkability” factor. The county has defined “walkable” as “A continuous network of sidewalks, paths, and street crossings that encourages pedestrian travel between origins and destinations free of obstructions and in a safe and comfortable environment.”
The proximity factors considered were jobs, retail commercial, schools, community centers, child care centers, places of worship, and hospitals, medical centers and clinics. Other factors were proximity to bicycle trails, parks and recreation, pedestrian paths and trails, freeway interchanges, bus transit and commuter rail stations.
The county recognizes that no site is ideal based on all the support factors. According the proposed Housing Element, “Some sites with only a few ideal characteristics available have been included, due to limited site availability options in some communities.”
The affordable housing plan was presented to the county Planning Commission at an Aug. 3 public hearing. The issue was continued to the Wednesday, Oct. 5 meeting to give staff the opportunity to respond to questions asked by commissioners. Public comments also will continue to be heard at the Oct. 5 meeting.
It is expected that the Planning Commission will finalize its review at the October meeting and vote to recommend that the Board of Supervisors approve the Housing Element and land-use designations, plus the associated environmental impact reports. Another public hearing will be held prior to the supervisors’ approval.
We do not need three story buildings in this area to block our views. Low income apartments will lower our home values and the vision our valley is striving for. Crime statistics will definitely go up and who will pay for extra patrol, fire, etc. 1200 is excessive. Maybe 300 and designate those for veterans, seniors. Build in small quant clusters instead of large swarms. Have some pride in this. Some of us have retired family members and veterans that would like to be closer to families.
I am so angry , I moved out here because of less traffic , very calm place to live . peaceful place to raise a family . now here comes 400 plus homes. No way for apartments , and low income . We don’t even have room in the schools now . I noticed the trailers at Todd Elem school. what does that tell you . WE ARE OVER FILLED . Send the Apartment down in the desert , its low income in which they will not have a job so there for our homes get broken into . I say NO WAY . MOVE ON
This 100% needs to be stopped. “Affordable housing” is code for ghetto section 8ers running amok in YOUR neighborhood and causing problems at YOUR kids schools and parks. There is plenty of land out east that can be used and won’t damage nice neighborhoods. You all MUST stop this from being built or you will severely pay the price.
Jay, you are right . If HUD housing or subsidized housing is serving our Veterans and/or Seniors, I’m all about it.
But high density, low income housing has been a failure and that’s because of crime. Of course, families want to live in safer neighborhoods. I understand that desire. But I am familiar with low income housing in the Los Angeles area and those areas are high in violent crime and gang activity. In addition, how will Riverside County verify income status or will they allow the tenants to self qualify? Fraud has always been an issue. Will illegals aliens and sex crime registrants be denied or “everybody is welcome.” It can go so wrong, resulting in “Temescal Valley’s Projects”
The problem is that THERE IS NOT ENOUGH infraestructure around the area for more traffic, regardless of the level of income of new habitants. Have you not driven lately from HTC to Corona in the peak hours? The 15 is becoming rapidly another CA 91. This is a terrible idea. The county should build first more roads, expand the I-15 all the way to Murrieta and add some toll options to OC from Lake Elsinore before coming with the brilliant idea of adding more people on the I-15 S corridor. This is A TERRIBLE IDEA.
This was posted on Facebook by Horsethief Canyon Ranch resident KELLI NOSS, who gave us permission to share it.
Updates from the Temescal Valley Municipal Advisory Committee (TVMAC) meeting last Wednesday… this will be lengthy – sorry, trying to compress 6+ hours of meetings from the 10 days into a single post.
About the 1,200 apartments as currently proposed by the County of Riverside. The planning commission re-opened their public comments until the October 5th meeting, after which time it’ll be passed to the Board of Supervisors for voting in November. Once the zoning change is passed, a specialized developer can come in and work the project at an expedited pace. We are welcome (and encouraged) to attend the meeting on October 5th at 9 a.m. at the Riverside Administrative Center – 4080 Lemon Street. We can also send emails/letters voicing our concerns leading up to that date which will become part of the public record – that info is at the very end.
The project is supposed to be split into two neighborhoods (Lee Lake North & Lee Lake South). The planning commission has switched the northern (smaller) community to being mixed use area which means retail shops on the bottom, apartments on top. The second southern community is remaining as high-high density housing.
The selection criteria for the areas are supposed to meet a number of requirements – there were a total of thirteen – with the knowledge that no area would 100% match all of those requirements. At the meeting, Kristi Lovelady (from the Riverside County Planning Department) stated that this spot meets four of those (proximity to the I-15, close to retail commercial/jobs – Vons shopping center, and parks). Personally, I feel like they really cherry picked from that list and glossed over some of the bigger issues. The doozy was the statement that they do not care that Luiseno, the closest elementary school, is near capacity (978 students) because that will ultimately be the developer’s issue, not the county during this selection process. I confirmed this with Luiseno and with LEUSD – they have no idea about this project.
The County is really following along with the state’s Housing and Community Development website, trying to counter public comments against the project. I want to share this link so we can combat what they’re stating – they’ve already discussed crime statistics, vehicle impact, Not In My Backyard (NIMBY), and others. These are important points to remember when forming your letters: http://www.hcd.ca.gov/housing-policy-development/nimby.htm
I also wanted to define what level of income these homes could be addressing. “Low Income” for Riverside County, for a family of four in 2016, is $53,600 and very low is $33,500. The HCD.ca.gov website does link statistics for what kind of jobs fall into those guidelines. This also includes seniors, veterans, and special needs/disability families.
I do not believe that a form letter will be the route to go on this. The Planning Commission stated they only received 18 comments about this project previously. I feel for the most impact we’re going to have to vary the responses and instead of focusing on topics covered in the NIMBY website (home values, crime, traffic) we need to focus on the fact that our valley does not have the kind of resources this project needs. We do not have childcare, large job pools, safe bike and pedestrian paths, public transportation, the school space since Luiseno has already been built out, medical services, etc. that this is going to require and it may be 20-30 years before we get those kind of services here. It’s only going to hurt our community and the folks that they want to put in these apartments.
From Robin Sutherland:
How can we keep adding more housing in Temescal Valley? The 15 freeway is not handling the volume of traffic now, let alone when all the proposed housing units are built. This shows how little planning goes into these projects. We need more than one frontage road through this valley now and /or 2 extra lanes in each direction on the freeway. Today is a classic example of the lack of alternate routes. I live at the top of Trilogy and can see the traffic daily from my house. The 15 freeway north is backed up for about 10 miles due to an accident blocking 3 lanes of the freeway. I’m sure Temescal Canyon road is jammed right now with cars trying to get around this mess. Good thing I”m not going anywhere today!
From L.B.:
WE KEEP ADDING MORE HOMES AND APARTMENTS TO THIS AREA AND THE TRAFFIC AREAS NEEDED TO GET TO SCHOOLING IS RIDICULOUS…ESPECIALLY THE HIGH SCHOOLS, IT TAKES 45 MINS. TO DRIVE YOUR CHILD TO THE HIGH SCHOOL DUE TO THE ROADS AT KNABE/WEIRICK. THEN ON TOP OF THAT, THE SCHOOLS ARE RUNNING ARE NEAR FULL CAPACITY; BUT WE KEEP BUSING IN CHILDREN FROM AREAS THAT DON’T EVEN LIVE AROUND HERE.
THIS HAS LEFT US WITH HIGHER TRAFFIC NUMBERS, MORE ACCIDENTS, INCREASE IN CRIME AND WE RUN SHORT ON POLICE/SHERIFF COVERAGE…
I really hope this doesn’t happen
Terramor houses are already being built. That alone will cause more traffic issues on an already overwhlemed 15 freeway. This area cannot support more people.