monte verde

i had the pleasure of watching a taped san diego planning council meeting this morning that reminded me of exactly why i'd never live in a place like university city. the meeting was about the massive (four 30 story-plus buildings) proposed new monte verde condo development at gilman and la jolla drive in university town centre. while the project is totally out of scale with the area, and the developer is basically ignoring the required zoning for the parcel (a hotel, which is not needed), the head of the university city community group opposing the project was so irritating, so NIMBY, i found myself wishing they'd turn her community into high-rise heaven.

in the utc area of university city, you already have a fairly dense residential area, supported by a mall, grocery stores, etc., and it's located right between two major transportation corridors. a new "super loop" shuttle is on its way to bus folks around to employment centers in the area, and ucsd nearby. so why not make it more dense? because if you're the head of the community group, you're not interested in taking your community to the next level - you just want it to remain the same place it was back in the 70's, which is just another suburb. so what if it's in a prime location with major employers, a mall, transportation options, hotels and other amenities? the area is a perfect candidate to be more dense via smart growth projects. no, instead you'd rather whine that you're "sick and tired of what this city is doing to us". that's after proclaiming how many votes you got last time as the community group leader.

look, accept the fact that some communities change over time (she'd be great in manhattan) and if you can't deal with that, move to ramona. and her delivery - sarcastic, angry, irrational - didn't help matters. so while i recognize the problems with monte verde - primarily the traffic impact - it couldn't happen to a nicer bunch of people, apparently.