Former Rosemead councilman calls for General Plan revision
This letter, written by Garvey School Board member Bob Bruesch, ran today. Bruesch is a former Rosemead City Councilman.
Update Rosemead plan
Article Launched: 03/09/2008 08:15:32 PM PDT
I was interested in reading the recent front-page article on Rosemead's current controversy over its General Plan revision.
I must remind readers that General Plans should be revised every 10 years, but Rosemead's plan is 21 years old - certainly not a document that reflects the current realities of our community. This plan must reflect both the demographic trends in the city and the rising cost of commercial and residential properties - forces local communities cannot really control.
In addition, longtime members of the City Council know that each city plan must, by state law, contain an updated housing element that provides strategies which implement state-mandated housing quotas aiming at ameliorating our region's critical housing shortage. Cities not adopting housing elements that follow state guidelines will face substantial financial sanctions.
I am dismayed that the outcry about the crowding and traffic this plan might produce are from the same voices who ignored similar complaints about the deleterious effects about the placement of a Wal-Mart store in a residential neighborhood several years ago. I, too, would like to have the "small-town" atmosphere that existed in Rosemead when I came here in 1966.
Sadly, those days are gone, due largely to the fact that the city's general plans of the past didn't have a vision of what was to be. City policy has not allowed the building of affordable housing - including condos and apartments - thus forcing our younger generation and their families to seek housing elsewhere. City development and redevelopment policies have not been aggressive enough to lure name-brand stores, family-style restaurants, supermarkets or movie theaters into our community.
Therefore, our main streets are overflowing with tiny ethnic restaurants, a plethora of car repair shops (41 on Garvey Avenue alone!), cut-rate furniture stores and empty commercial lots that have gathered weed for nearly thirty years.
Is it any wonder that young people and their families - from all cultural groups - complain that there is "no place to go in Rosemead," that a majority of our main street traffic is generated by commuters passing through our communities but not stopping to shop, that virtually all the residential building is larger, more costly homes that are well beyond the budgets of a vast majority of Rosemead's residents?
Instead of quibbling about the nuances of a phrase or sentence in the General Plan, Rosemead's citizens need to work together in developing a vision of a community that will meet the needs of our current population and forge a blueprint of what our future community will look like. We must move forward in approving the General Plan and leave political motives and sectional rivalries behind.
Robert W. "Bob" Bruesch
Former Mayor, City of Rosemead
Rosemead
As a former mayor, why not listen to the residents and not the developers?
Treating residents like they are stupid is wrong, educate them. Wal-mart was done correctly and people with other plans let unions and other outside people who wanted development projects of their own to be supported in it's place. If the three amigos (and anyone who supports them) get their way, what good is a nice email like this one Mr. Bruesh is writing? I can't say I disagree. It's a land-grab so walk with caution. Look who is in it for themselves or their friends and not the betterment of Rosemead. They will be very obvious.
Under consideration is to down zone R2 properties in certain south side of the city to R1 to offset density from mixed used projects. So, the solution to addressing density created by the mixed used projects is to reduce/take away rights of current property owners? What kind of "dense" thinking is this? Rosemead, I feel for y'all.
Treating residents like they are stupid is exactly what Clark and the rest of them have been doing. They keep sending these postcard fabrications about what the general plan is going to do, or what the home maintenance ordinance will do, or what a small satellite campus will do. They just make things up and then wonder why people think they're craven.
And, again, WHY is Wal-Mart paying for all this? Why wouldn't they want their neighborhood houses to look nicer, to have a better-educated population, and to update a general plan that is more than twenty years old?
@Truth
Wal Mart was done totally incorrectly. Look at the General Plan - the plan for the area, and the zoning, was for office buildings. How much more wrong could you get than to toss aside planning, and change the land use?
In fact, at a hearing, I asked about the fact that the Wal Mart would go against the GP. Maggie Clark said it was typical to make a zone change and then amend the GP. Like a fool, I believed her. Was she lying, or just ignorant about the issue, or what?
Makes you wonder.
@ Facts,
And the property the Wal-Mart was built on sat empty for years because nobody wanted to build another office park in Rosemead. So the city had a choice and Wal-Mart was a good one.
How many zoning changes are made for any city to make good use of land? Almost all are changed and a lot of work went into those changes so don't say incorrect things like "it was tossed aside” If you were a part of the process, many people spent many hours and expense to follow the law in the Wal-Mart project. Just because you do not agree with it, don't make up reasons why you ended up on the losing end. I personally don't care what goes into the land, as long as no individual is benefiting from kickbacks or there is a serious health concern. So to let Wal-Mart build was the right thing to do. It is not right for unions to come in and say "Wal-Mart treats their employees bad” or "it's bad for the economy" when the reason they are stating these things is obvious. Get facts straight and a good debate can be had. Lie for personal gain is what I'm hearing from the majority of the critics.
The lot sat empty because there's an earthquake fault that runs right under it, and SCE didn't want to put their workers at risk.
Yeah, the odds are that the fault won't rupture again in our lifetimes. But if it does, I'd hate to be in that supercenter when the quake hits.