The MENDOCINO COUNTRY Independent
Web Posted My 20, 2009
For Documentary Resources
on this issue, go to our Voters Union page.
DDR MEGA MALL INITIATIVE ON FAST TRACK
If it passes, the ability of local governments to
enforce land use policies and provide a coordinated vision for our
future will be irrevocably impaired. In other communities, socalled
"ballot box zoning" has snowballed, pushing elected officals to the
margins of the land use decision making process.
This is an issue of major countywide significance,
and voters in all districts are urged to organize to defeat it.
Rapid
Deployment
Only last March did Developers Diversified Realty of
Beachwood, Ohio announced it would ask county voters to pass an
initiative to amend the County General Plan, rezoning DDR’s 76-acre
Masonite site north of Ukiah from industrial to mixed use and adopt a
Specific Plan written for DDR by an Orange County consultant -- 310
pages long.
It allows DDR to build “Mendocino Crossings”
shopping center with any combination it wants of big box retail stores,
residences and other facilities, with the mix to be based on “market
demand.” There are 3.3 million square feet on the site, and a
single big box store could be up to 800,000 square feet. The parking
lot would hold more than 3,000 cars. The Specific Plan would also
allow DDR to build up to 150 residences. Signs over the site could be
up to 100 feet high.
They recruited a group of local citizens calling
itself Mendocino County Tomorrow which filed an intent to
circulate the measure. These are small businesspeople who were
probably identified in the polling the company did last
year. They are ideologically libertarian -- critics of government
regulation as such -- and they are probably being groomed as future
candidates for office. Finally emerging from the shadows at a recent
BOS meeting, some of them proved more articulate than others.
After the county counsel approved a ballot title and
summary on April 1, some two dozen hired petitioners hit the streets
countwide. They appeared to be low income males from Southern
California with a particular approach to voters which depended on a
mixture of flattery, deception and intimidation.
In Laytonville, a petitioner was criticized and sued
after allegedly knocking a customer at the local grocery to the ground.
To be sure he was defending himself from illegally being forced to
leave the premises.
The political consultant firm which hired the firm
that hired the petitioners has a history of conflict and controversy in
its operations, as well as a tremendous record of success.
Despite our reputation for independence, those
tactics worked well here also, and just 30 days later, the company's
captive organization turned in 10,700 signatures. They only needed
7,000 to qualify for a special election.
On May 12, the BOS voted 3-2 against a detailed
motion by supervisor McCowen to direct staff to produce a study of the
project's impacts on a range of parameters including tax revenue, the
local economy, land and housing, traffic and water. Only supervisor
Brown supported it.
On May 18, however, the board voted 4-1 with Pinches
dissenting to direct the CEO to present a study June 16 based on a memo
from the planning department. At that time, the board will likely order
the initiative to be placed on the November ballot.
Who's Behind It?
The FPPC form 410 for Mendocino County Tomorrow
Candidate PAC reveals that the treasurer is Ken Marshall of 381 Lovers
Lane in Ukiah, but the assistant treasurer is Chistopher Skinnell of
2350 Kerner Boulevard, Suite 250 in San Rafael.
DDR has formed a second committee which will
actually make the decisions, conduct the campaign and spend the money.
This is called "Citizens to bring Jobs, Tax Dollars, and Local Shopping
to Mendocino County -- a Coalition being Led by Mendocino County
Tomorrow with Major Funding by DDR DB Mendocino LP."
DDR DB Mendocino LP was filed in Delaware in
February of 2007 with headquarters at the Developers Diversified Realty
building in Beachwood Ohio. The street address is listed at 456 B North
State Street in Ukiah, in the Montanos office building south of The
Coffee Critic. The mailing address however is the San Rafael office of
Mr. Skinnell.
The Treasurer of the "Citizens to bring etc," is
Stan Hoffman at 455 East 500 South, Suite 300 in Salt Lake City. The
assistant treasurer is Jason D. Kaune at the San Rafael office of Mr.
Skinnell, who is also listed as another assistant treasurer. And
additional officers are listed as Joan Allgood and David Weiss at the
Beachwood, Ohio address of Developers Diversified Realty. According to
campaign finance statements filed with the county clerk, this committee
has received $170,000 from DDR.
Help Defeat DDR:
On May 1, Cliff Paulin announced the formation of a
campaign committee to oppose the DDR Initiative, with additional
spokespeople Ukiah mayor Mari Rodin and Potter Valley farmer Guiness
McFadden as additional spokespeople.
Paulin said that the campaign to stop DDR would
focus on the need to keep the Masonite site available for new
industrial jobs, rather than the low-wage chain store jobs that DDR's
mall would provide. "Studies show that every new job in a big shopping
mall causes the loss of 1.4 jobs in local stores that lose business,"
he explained.
"Voters will think twice when they learn about how
DDR is exempting itself from any environmental review under state law,"
said Paulin. "There will be no environmental impact report that will
verify that North State Street can handle the traffic or that the
Russian River can supply the water."
For more information, email sole@pacific.net and see
www.nomegamall.com Donations can be sent to Save Our Local Economy,
Post Office Box 1530, Ukiah, CA 95482.
The Impacts:
The major economic impacts are the potential for
vacancies and blight in downtown Ukiah, Willits and , along with the
long term loss of industrially zoned land in the county.
Such a permanent rezoning of the site to mixed use
is a community choice to embrace low wage employment. The site is
currentlly zoned for industry and was used by Masonite Corporation for
50 years. DDR bought the site in 2005 and demolished the plant
facilities, despite appeals to save it for new industrial uses.
The 76-acre property is the largest industrial
parcel in the inland county and has rail access and other features that
make it ideal for new industrial development.
A new 30-acre industrial park north of the site
shows a demand for facilities suited to light industry, automotive
repair and aftermarket conversion, owner operated machine shops and
cottage industries of all kinds. Industrial employers offer
better wages, training and benefits than retail stores. Many
timber industry officials believe that the regrowth of the county’s
forests will create a need for new wood products in the future.
Also, industry creates a stronger local economy
because it brings money into the area, instead of draining it out like
big box stores do. There is good potential for future industrial
use of the Masonite site, if it stays in industrial zoning.
The fiscal impacts are enormous as the project as
designed would create an alternative city on the northern border of
Ukiah generating sales taxes to the county, but not the city.
The major environmental impacts are traffic and
water.
The County’s draft General Plan for the Ukiah Valley
found that major traffic improvements would be needed if there is to be
more development around the Masonite site, including a new north-south
road and a new freeway access off Brush Street.
But DDR doesn’t want to pay for those
improvements, so the Specific Plan dictates that North State Street
will bear all the burden. DDR’s Plan specifies 5 new traffic
lights on North State Street, bringing the total to 7 traffic lights in
the 1⁄2 mile stretch from Orr Springs Road to Ford Road.
Millview Water District plans a major upgrade to its
pipes under North State Street, unrelated to the DDR project, most of
which is not included in Millview's jurisdiction.
Millview has a moratorium on new hookups, and
requires any new use identify a new source of water. The Specific Plan
names Masonite Well Six as the new source, which is located between the
DDR site and the Russian River, land still owned by Masonite and zoned
agricultural. The well has not been used for at least 10 years and may
be degraded. Millview's district director has said their is no
agreement to hook up Mendocino Crossings in the near future. If the
Masonite Corporation deeds the well to Millview, that and the
annexation of the shopping center site would have to be approved by
LAFCO, and may thus require an EIR. If voters approve the initiative,
there may not be sufficent water to service the project.
Regulatory
Considerations
This site was crucial to the most significant change
in local politics last year, the unseating of libertarian, pro
development, anti-environmental supervisors Wattenburger and Delbar.
In August of 2007, Wattenburger was the key vote in
approving maximum buildout parameters in the Ukiah Valley Area Plan
program EIR. That decision would allow up to 1.3 million square feet of
retail and 871 housing units. (see Voters Union page,
www.mendocinocountry.com
Unlike the UVAP, however, the DDR initiative itself
has no mechanism for CEQA review, and courts have found voter measures
to be exempt. That means that if it passes, the Specific Plan cannot be
modified or mitigated except by another vote of the people. It contains
finding declaring that it is consistent with the Ukiah Valley Area Plan
and the current and future General Plans, but it is not.
Impacts on Land Use Planning and Politics
Observers of ballot-box zoning in California note
that initiatives beget more voter initatives. That is, once the concept
of making land-use decisions gets embedded in the local political
culture, it replicates itself, burrowing deeper and deeper into the
political landscape. That entrenchment is partly because some
ballot-box zoning actually requires voter approval for subsequent
amendments, and it's also because, over time, people come to expect
that they -- and not their elected officials -- are the ones who set
land use policy.
The 2008 Save Our Anaheim Resort District, also
known as the Disney Ballot Box Zoning Initiative, would have removed
authority from the Anaheim, California City Council to make any
land-use decision within 2.5 miles of the Disneyland resort area
without prior voter approval. The initiative was paired with a
referendum seeking to overturn an early 2007 decision by the
council to give residential zoning on 1,500 acres in the prime resort
area of Anaheim to SunCal, a real estate development company. That
residential zoning would have enabled SunCal to build 1,500 condo units
in or near the prime resort area.
With the support of Anaheim Mayor Curt Pringle and
State Senator Lou Correa, the SOAR Coalition and more than 100
volunteers collected 21,243 signatures in less than 30 days.
The Walt Disney company, as of October 31, 2007, had
spent $1.7 million on the SOAR campaign, with $402,000 going directly
to SOAR. SOAR has received only one other donation, which consisted of
$100.
The funding enabled collection of signatures on both
the veto referendum seeking to overturn the city council's grant of
residential zoning to SunCal, and on the initiative seeking in the
future to prevent the city council from making such zoning changes
without direct, citywide, voter approval.
The National Petition Management company coordinated
the signature collection effort.
`Opposition to the Disney Ballot Box Zoning Initiative came from the
Committee to Defend and Protect Anaheim which is funded by members of
the Anaheim city council and SunCal, the real estate development firm
whose planned development is the source of the controversy.
The Committee to Defend and Protect Anaheim issued
withdrawal cards so that citizens could remove their signatures from
SOAR's referendum and initiative, asking them to "Stop the Disney
Takeover."[5]
`There were police reports of the groups harassing each other. One was
when SunCal petitioners were in the way of the Disney petition table at
a local farmer's market. Todd Ament, co-chairman of SOAR, also reported
the SunCal petitioners blocking him again when he tried to set up a
table.
SunCal has reported similar actions from SOAR. John
Lewis, a SunCal political consultant, said opponents show up where
petitioners were already stationed. "SOAR people got in their face and
tried to intimidate them."
The issue has spawned three lawsuits, three ballot
measures, a threat of a recall and protests at City Hall.