If ever there was a no-brainer in the financially unraveling San
Juan Bautista, it’s the Artisans’ Plaza project catering to a broad
cross-section of tenants while promoting a diversity of culture on
which the city has prided itself for years.
If ever there was a no-brainer in the financially unraveling San Juan Bautista, it’s the Artisans’ Plaza project catering to a broad cross-section of tenants while promoting a diversity of culture on which the city has prided itself for years.
Telling by residents’ reactions, or a lack there of, it’s apparent the city’s people agree, too. We expect an approval by a majority of residents and, ultimately, by officials, too.
Mission City residents and officials in recent years have resisted most new development with potential to change the historic town’s character. At the core of that defensive tack is the very growth cap developer Tod duBois must hurdle to get his mixed-use concept on the table for official consideration.
San Juan Bautista’s law limiting new growth to about seven residential units per year stands in the way of duBois’ Artisans’ Plaza plans to build a bed-and-breakfast inn, live-work condominiums for artists and senior co-housing in which residents would participate in design and operation of their own neighborhood. The proposal also calls for an art gallery and a visitor’s center.
It’s a lot of new surroundings for townspeople resistant to change, but we believe it can only help and, in the long run, would stand to benefit the town’s cherished character.
Who can argue against a city seeped so deeply in tradition fighting to grasp its roots, hopeful, it seems, of never letting go?
Skepticism comes with the territory, literally, in this bucolic town conveniently located off Highway 156 and surrounded by other cities succumbing in recent years to an explosion of regional growth.
Those growth pressures have enclosed on San Juan Bautista, too – remember a push by the California Milk Processor Board to rename the town “Got Milk?” in exchange for a hefty check? – but these residents have chosen tradition over profitability. In most cases, rightfully so.
We, however, feel this project would not only fit right in with such attractions as Old Mission San Juan Bautista, El Teatro Campesino and a slew of culinary and cultural delights, but it could also help draw more tourists and provide an injection of activity into a struggling economy.
We’re encouraged that an organized opposition hasn’t developed. What’s even harder to believe is it’s difficult to find a single combative voice out there, which says a lot for this project in this town – and for how people there understand the urgency of the city’s troubles.
