HomeMy WebLinkAboutAgenda Bill 1.A-Late03 04/25/2011From: Schuler [schuler2 @comcast.net]
Sent: Monday, April225., 2011 11:15 AM
To: Hines, Heather; Brown, John; daveglass @ comcast.net; - City Clerk; CityCouncil
Subject: Deer-Village Creek
I will be a close neighbor to the Deer Village Creek Shopping Center. This fact alone is telling. You don't see this kind of
project this close to residential neighborhoods in recently built shopping centers in Cotati, Novato, Rohnert Park or even
Santa Rosa. I know it happens in Southern California. This is certainly not something I was led to believe would happen
when I bought into the vision of the well planned city of the future that Petaluma was being promoted as 25 years ago.
think that city may exist today, but on the other side of the tracts, and evidently at the expense of quality of life for me and
my neighbors.
I read the EIR and the most glaring problem with the report is its failure to address traffic on Rushmore Ave. This is a
relatively quiet residential street that connects Professional and Rainer — the-two streets that will be used by vehicles
entering and exiting the shopping center and wishing to avoid congestion on McDowell. Common sense tells you people
use this street to.get where they want to go. Information about.trafficimpacts to Rushmore Ave need to incorporated in
the EIR.
I'm not really sure how you decide who does your EIR and I'm sure the one you bought meets whatever minimum
requirements the law sets, but there are-other shortcomings in,this report that I can see as a layman whose environment
will be impacted. The urban decay analysis seems to be solely concerned with empty businesses. I live in a
neighborhood that because of economic circumstances contains vacant houses. I didn't see an analysis of projected drop
in nearby residential values associated with this development, but even without an analysis, I can assure you that more
families struggling to make their mortgage payments in my neighborhood will walk away from their homes.if this project
goes ahead in its present form. How many banked owned vacant homes in a neighborhood constitute a minimal level of
urban decay?
And the report states that there will be significant and unavoidable increases in noise and pollution associated with this
project. I know I have seen analyses of what increased pollution means in more specific terms in other contexts. There
must be models that will quantify the effects of the predicted pollution on the health of residents of my neighborhood.
There will certainly be additional health costs incurred by individuals and /or government, especially over the lifetime of
children whose families can't sell their homes to escape increased air pollution. And there will be a cumulative shortening
of lifespan. Will Deer Village Creek only result in minutes, hours, days, or years of life taken from nearby residents?
There must be models that could give us a range of values based on data for other locations. With this kind of information
the individuals making decisions that will affect, hundreds of lives can, at least make an informed decision about what ratio
of "hours of life lost" to "retail leakage dollars captured" is significant and unavoidable.
understand the concept of the greater good, but I also know our representatives have an obligation to protect everyone
in the community. The residents of Park Place and other nearby communities need to know that the people entrusted
with our welfare are carefully weighing their welfare against the perceived good that Deer Village Creek represents.
Steven Schuler
105 Muir Ct