DMB, backers of proposed new city off Highway 25, whisk 25 local
residents to ready-made project in Arizona
Developers proposing a massive community in the Bolsa Basin off
Highway 25 flew 25 San Benito residents to a similar community they
are building in Buckeye, Ariz., last Saturday.
The whirlwind one-day tour of DMB’s Verrado Estates was,
according to all the participants interviewed, dazzling. Nearly all
started their assessments with the word,
”
impressive.
”
DMB, backers of proposed new city off Highway 25, whisk 25 local residents to ready-made project in Arizona
Developers proposing a massive community in the Bolsa Basin off Highway 25 flew 25 San Benito residents to a similar community they are building in Buckeye, Ariz., last Saturday.
The whirlwind one-day tour of DMB’s Verrado Estates was, according to all the participants interviewed, dazzling. Nearly all started their assessments with the word, “impressive.”
The participants included former District 4 county Supervisor Ron Rodrigues, YMCA Director Lou Bettencourt, the Rev. Ardyss Golden and her husband George, community activist Nenette Corotto, Barbara Cosio and interior designer Barbara Ziebron, who described a well thought out, safe and clean community that catered to the needs of an array of different living situations: from cottages for singles, granny units, loft apartments, condominiums, to small homes and medium-sized dwellings – all mixed together and placed around some 19 parks of different sizes, a downtown area of a few retail business, a town square, a community center, a magnificent school, and a golf course with a communal clubhouse. Sprawling estate-like mansions were placed on the outer reaches near the golf course.
“I was very impressed with how the thing was laid out,” said Rodrigues, the former county leader who has seen many development proposals come before him. “They didn’t spare anything when it came to parks. Kids were playing and dogs were running around. The homes themselves are typical of subdivisions, close together, but with space in the front and the back. It tells me Hollister has been totally irresponsible when it comes to parks. And they got the money to do it because you pay money for impact fees. Down there they build a park at the same time they lay out their neighborhoods.”
The locals were chosen lottery-style, at random, from a pool of 80 names by Gary Byrne, director of the Community Foundation. While the event could have been taken for a classic “wine and dine” effort by the DMB developers, it was more like hard work, though very well planned, according to Rodrigues. The group was told to bring their walking shoes and be prepared for six hours of trolling the premises, including an inspection of an eclectic mix of furnished model homes. The participants were flown out of San Jose on a commercial jet in the early morning, ate sandwiches on a bus to Buckeye, then began their tour of the non-gated community that, by all accounts, was akin to something out of a Leave it to Beaver TV episode. They finished with a dinner at the golf course restaurant clubhouse, where everyone participated in a focus group styled discussion about what they liked and didn’t like.
“It was a standard of excellence that has never been here (in San Benito) before,” said Nenette Corotto. “I was very impressed, and it was practical. The things they did were things people can live with. Some homes were small, some were big. All the space was useable; there were small yards, but then right across is a park, an open green area.”
All the participants seemed to be thrilled by the housing mix used in the downtown retail area, which displayed loft apartments atop stores on Main Street. Corotto described a grocery story that was a little smaller than the Raley’s Nob Hill in south Hollister, tucked into an area that blended with other buildings. Streets were narrow, she was told, to slow down traffic. Parked cars were kept behind the lines of houses in alleyways or garages that were set back from the front of the homes. Many of the participants remarked how safe the community felt, and after gleaning more information from their handlers, learned that while it is not a gated community, the housing mix – which places seniors, stay-at-home parents and working couples all in the same general area – assures that there would always be people around, a sure discouragement for would-be vandals and burglars.
Verrado depends on the use of nearby Buckeye police for law enforcement, and according to DMB spokesman Ray Becker, there are plans to build a firehouse inside the community. The community is also regulated by a homeowners association.
“It was some of the atmosphere that I remembered as a child,” Corotto said. “I used to live on Central Avenue (in Hollister) before it got widened later on.”
All were delighted to see how the builders had begun the project with the school and the parks, and built around the facilities. The parks were of all shapes and sizes around every corner – one with a full baseball diamond, a smaller one with a gazebo where a resident could quietly read a book, another had swing sets – and the parklands made for a total of 88 acres.
“There was this basset hound sitting just perfectly in one of the parks, and someone made a joke asking the (DMB) tour guides, ‘How did you manage to pay that dog to pose like that?'” Corotto said. “Dads were playing football with their kids. You could see the thought that went into this.”
“The kids just left their play stuff out there and no one takes things,” said Barbara Cosio. “It’s not a gated community but you feel very protected. It was a family thing. They planned all of this around the people asking questions. The main street where they had a variety of stores was very clean – someone said, ‘They must vacuum every night, I guess.’ The cars and garages are back in alleys that are probably a lot cleaner than our front streets.”
The scene painted by the participants was a squeaky clean, picture-perfect one – perhaps a bit too clean and perfect, said participant Ardyss Golden, pastor of Hollister’s First Methodist Church and a foster parent who on weekends shelters up to a dozen children on her five-acre parcel on Buena Vista Road on the west side of Hollister.
“It’s like a combination of Disneyland and Stonegate [the gated collection of five-acre ranchettes near Tres Pinos, south of Hollister],” Golden said. “So it isn’t a gated community but it has, to me, a feeling of a gated community, where everyone who lives there is very much alike economically and racially speaking. The people who live there are primarily Caucasian. My concern was how do we make this affordable in San Benito so all people of economical status can live there. What are they going to provide for the problems in Hollister, space for people who are jobless? Is the city going to be a little Utopia where there are no problems?”
Barbara Ziebron, an interior designer of Hollister, agreed that the community wasn’t for everyone.
“It’s not going to appeal to everyone,” Ziebron offered. “It’s not a gated community but still there are restrictions. You can’t zoom in and buy a house and paint it pink and green. What if you have a large party? Where are the cars going to end up? It depends on how people live. If a person is not interested in conforming to certain restrictions it’s not going to work for them. But think about how many people this will suit.”
The school, said the participants, was the kind every parent dreams about. Every child is equipped with a satellite-linked laptop they can take on field trips. The school itself is a well-built facility and – like all things in Verrado – has the desert motif of adobe and rust-colored roof tile adorning it. DMB spokesman Becker, who also went on the trip with several other representatives of his company, said the architecture would be different for “El Rancho San Benito” planned for the Bolsa area, again, depending on what San Benito citizens ask for.
“Verrado is a very Arizona-type project,” Becker said. “We’re trying to show the thoughtfulness that went into it. We’re not going to just drop Verrado into San Benito County. The architecture is Spanish-colonial style, and they’d like more diverse architecture. More color, not just earth tones. The trick is to celebrate what’s great about San Benito County.”
That’s going to be a big trick, Golden said, because what’s great about San Benito is its diversity. The county is 55 percent Hispanic, according to the 2000 census.
“They say there’s no gangs. Well, that’s because there is no diversity,” Golden countered, emphasizing that she is merely offering constructive criticism. “To me, it had a sterile feeling, and I told them that. Everything was manicured to perfection. Where are my Hispanic brothers and sisters going to live in this community? They said, ‘Well, we have some Hispanic families here who came from Europe.’ Let’s face it; it’s the people who have who need to support the people who don’t have. I’m kind of idealistic. They want to make things wonderful. It’s just that Verrado is too wonderful.”
Several tour-goers commented that they saw few people out and about the community. Verrado is in the first of three phases in its buildout. By the time it is completed, says Becker, the community will contain 15,000 homes of all shapes and sizes and boast a population of roughly 25,000 people. In essence, it is a city unto itself. Verrado is built on twice the amount of acreage that DMB has secured in the Bolsa area, which is a 4,500-acre parcel. While Becker still won’t say how many homes DMB wants to build in the Bolsa, it might be fair to guess about 8,000 – half the amount at Verrado. In terms of number of homes, that would be a city about three-fourths the size of Hollister, which contains 10,587 dwellings, according to 2005 figures compiled by the state Department of Finance.
Still, most participants were pleased that DMB developers are unlike any others that have come to San Benito in that their plans, they assure all, will reflect everything residents of San Benito want in a housing community.
“For a certain number of people this would be ideal,” designer Ziebron said. “But I think it would be boring if everyone wanted the same thing. I do think it would be an asset to the community.”
“This would set a precedent and anything else coming in would have to follow the amenities they offer,” Corotto added.
“What I saw in Arizona was for a limited group of people in a higher economic bracket and that wouldn’t be for me because I want to live with more diversity, less rules, where everyone is welcome and could afford to live there,” Golden said.
She added that she respected the fact that DMB backers listened to her concerns, and despite her critiques they have invited her to their next planning meeting.
“They didn’t just blow off my questions,” she said. “I felt like they really cared about what I say.”
Becker has said that he and his associates are nearing the end of their community input period, and plan to submit a proposal for their ambitious project to the San Benito County Planning Department some time in spring.
Golden recounted her feelings she had when the group readied for departure.
“When we got back on the bus, people were saying, ‘There won’t be any purple fences, no clothesline in this neighborhood.’ I thought, ‘Wow, you’re already talking about making a place so sterile.’ I don’t think we need another community that has only people living there in the upper income bracket.”
“I don’t want to live in a place without clotheslines,” she added.
