Many Proposals, One Proposition

To all who care about our public lands and Celery Fields:

Recently people from the community met with the lead planner for the Quad Parcel study now being conducted by the County. This "Critical Area Plan" will open the area to new possibilities. Below are two ways you can influence the outcome.

1. Proposals -- Many who were involved with Fresh Start either developed proposals or grew attached to one or more of those that were presented to the Board. As you know, the Board chose not to direct staff to work on any of our ideas.

What's next? The planning department is now conducting its study of the area. It will look at land uses, at the roads, and at surrounding areas. It will speak with "stakeholders," including the public - that workshop is being planned for mid-May, but the exact date is not yet set.

The results of Planning's research will be presented to the Board a few months from now - possibly in August or September - and at that time, the Board might direct staff to prepare a rezoning of one or more of the Quad parcels.

It would be great if the Board directs staff to prepare a land use rezoning that would allow one or more of the great ideas the community has birthed - and more ideas are on the way. Some truly remarkable and imaginative new proposals are in the works which you'll be hearing more about soon.

Bear in mind, Fresh Start was a limited Board/community process that is no longer active. People like you who remain committed to a bright future for the Celery Fields area must now remember that the Board can do one of three things with the Planning Dept.'s study:

It can direct staff to

a. rezone for compatible uses beneficial to the community.
b. rezone for industrial, commercial or other uses preparatory to a sale to a private developer.
c. do nothing at all (unlikely after this staff initiative).

How can we influence the decision makers to go with A rather than B or C? This is where #2 comes in:

2. Community Proposition: Residents and folks with businesses near the Quad parcels have begun working on a "Community Proposition" for the Quads. The basic idea is, prefer public uses to private development. Encourage beneficial community uses within an enabling positive framework. Note that this initiative doesn't propose specific uses for the parcels. Rather it's about preferring public A to private B - and is offering a way to benefit the entire area.

More about the Community Proposition soon. Meanwhile, if you have a proposal for one or more of the quad parcels, this is the time to send it to lead planner Steve Kirk at SKirk@scgov.net.

Mr. Kirk has indicated that part of the May workshop will involve the planning department's review of proposals that have been submitted up to that time. NOTE: this is likely to include only the 4 final proposals submitted by Fresh Start. If you developed an idea that was not one of the final 4 and still like it, please share it with Mr. Kirk.

All the information we've gathered about the proposals, the workshop, and the critical area plan process are now at this link.

Quads Workshop Info so far

When the date of the workshop is announced, it will be added, and we'll let you know.


Thank you for caring about our public spaces.

Tom Matrullo
Glenna Blomquist