Developer wants to build retirement community, campus and
perhaps an amusement park
A proposal to build a
”
city of learning
”
about two miles away from the Pinnacles National Monument was
met with jeers last week when backers of the project floated it to
neighboring landowners.
Developer wants to build retirement community, campus and perhaps an amusement park
A proposal to build a “city of learning” about two miles away from the Pinnacles National Monument was met with jeers last week when backers of the project floated it to neighboring landowners.
The project could include, possibly, an amusement park.
The project backers billed the meeting, held at the Windmill Restaurant in Soledad, as “an afternoon tea.” But according to news accounts and several attendees, it more resembled a frat house food fight.
“I would be seriously concerned if it went forward in its conceptual design,” said Eric Brunnemann, Superintendent of the Pinnacles National Monument, who attended the 2-hour meeting along with other park officials, landowners of the area and city officials of Soledad. Also attending were members of LandWatch of Monterey, a managed-growth advocacy group that openly opposes the project and is organizing an effort to kill it.
Philippine-based developer Romeo G. Roxas wants to build a new city that would be a mixed-use venture, including a retirement community, golf course, college campus, wildlife sanctuary, commercial/retail section and some sort of an amusement park on more than 5,000 acres in the hills above Soledad. Though Roxas was not at the meeting, his daughter, Yvette Sullivan of Salinas, and Roxas’ representative, Leon Katz, tried their best to convince the audience that the project would bring jobs and tourism to the area.
“It’s a well planned futuristic, walkable city,” Katz said in an interview with The Pinnacle this week. “If they can do this sort of planning in China, why not here in America?”
Katz is president of Commercial Brokers Inc. based in Torrance. According to reports in the Salinas Californian, Katz told meeting-goers he worked with Roxas for six years on the project, which he and his associates dub “a city of learning.” Katz explained to the attendees that the plan is to annex the 5,000 acres into the city of Soledad.
“What happens when a child in Soledad wants to go to college? They have to leave the area,” Katz said. “They’re short on housing up there, and it’s overpriced. We would have affordable housing in the plan, as well.”
Chris Fitz, executive director of LandWatch of Monterey, said the majority of people at the meeting (about 60 in all) were “very angry” about the proposal and have asked his group for help in stopping it. Most are neighbors to where the city-sized project would be located and others are residents of Soledad proper.
“It’s absolutely ridiculous the notion of annexing 5,000 acres of land into the city of Soledad,” Fitz said. “It’s three or four times bigger than the size of the city now! The idea is ludicrous, and these guys are snake oil salesmen.”
Brunnemann said that many at the meeting, including him, were confounded by what he described as an inadequate “master plan that was floating around the meeting, which had a lot of photographs but seemed more like an investors’ prospectus,” he said.
According to a report in the Salinas Californian, the meeting deteriorated into a shouting match that left many attending with unanswered questions. Of particular concern were environmental issues, to which Katz said, “All those issues are going to be addressed with the planning, and those are things that can be dealt with.”
His explanation apparently didn’t satisfy the audience, and that’s when, according to Brunnemann, Katz further inflamed the situation with an incendiary remark.
“The ugliest comment was when Katz suggested something like, ‘Fine, if you want to live in your log cabins, we’re going forward.'”
Katz acknowledged the meeting went sour.
“People were making off-the-wall statements, crazy stuff,” Katz said. “Things like, ‘Well, we don’t believe colleges are going to come here.’ Of course, we wanted everyone to say what they wanted to say. It just seems to me it was so set up. The people there were so disruptive.”
A point of concern was the possibility of adding an amusement park to the plans, which would require further annexation of neighboring properties – much of it rolling ranchlands that have been owned by the same families for multiple generations.
“Landowners were saying, ‘What are you doing putting an amusement park on my property?'” Brunnemann observed.
“We asked them if they were interested in joining with us in an annexation process, and they were totally freaked,” Katz countered.
When asked if he and his associates were aware of the fragile condor reintroduction program at The Pinnacles park, Katz reiterated that environmental concerns would be addressed later. The condors have flight paths that cover nearly half the state, and the nearly extinct birds can fly up to 300 miles in a day.
“We’re very concerned about nature,” Katz said. “A lot of the fears and concerns are uncalled for.”
Katz said that 70 percent of the project would be “open space,” and that the golf course would be the part closest to the federal park.
Brunnemann said that according to the literature distributed at the meeting, he calculated the project would be 10,000 feet from the park’s west entrance, or roughly two miles. “But I just don’t believe their scales,” Brunnemann said. “An amusement park and a wildlife sanctuary on top of other peoples’ lands? I mean, we are a wildlife sanctuary!”
Brunnemann said that when people grilled the developers about the amusement park, Katz played down the idea and said it was a component they “threw in at the last minute.”
“It’s something we don’t think would go forward,” Katz told The Pinnacle. “But we think the project would complement the Pinnacles (park). It would be a university town with entertainment. Everyone would want to live in it.
“I know a lot of people are against that, and I appreciate that there’s a need to have a place for the animals and all, but you have to think about people too,” Katz went on. “We need to have it balanced, a place to go to church, a place to go to school, where not only nature but people can do well.”
Brunnemann said he was eager to know more details about the proposed endeavor, and that what was available at the meeting was “Nowhere in this document were there any explanations for wetlands, endangered species, nothing,” Brunnemann said. “I need to have real plans in my hands.”
As implausible as the project may sound, Fitz said he worries that elected leaders might take the project seriously.
“My concern is that if they fail to convince LAFCO [the agency that makes annexing decisions], then they will try to incorporate their own city,” Fitz said. “Or they might scale down the project and go to the Monterey Board of Supervisors, which is radically pro-growth. These developers are greedy, and when they start with something so huge and so outrageous, people take them seriously when they whittle it down.”
For more details, call LandWatch at 831-422-9390.
Leon Katz can be reached at his office in Southern California at 310-698-0630.
