Letters to the Editor

Over development?

 On April 2 Carlsbad’s City Council approved the Quarry Creek development in the Buena Vista Creek valley at 656 units with a major argument that all these were needed to meet the city’s affordable housing needs. However, between this project and Encinas Creek Apartments located nearby, the city has a total of 783 affordable housing units.

The original slated numbers for these two projects were 506 and 80, respectively, for a total of 586, which would keep the city in compliance for its projected housing needs.

Why does Carlsbad need an additional 197 units in the northeast quadrant where these two projects are located, when other parts of the city has developers willing to build affordable housing? For the past year, city staff, and presumably the City Council, knew that Encinas Creek would be approved at 127 units not 80. So another question arises as to why didn’t the council elect to reduce the total number of units at Quarry Creek as recommended by the Planning Commission?

Apparently, the City Council is more willing to listen to developers than the voters who have continually lobbied to reduce the footprint of Quarry Creek.

Paige DeCino

Carlsbad

 

City problems

In the ‘50s, Del Mar was a neighborhood in the county, like Rancho Santa Fe. Then there was an effort to annex to the City of San Diego as a neighborhood, like La Jolla.

But most residents voted to incorporate as a city in 1959, under the “Lakewood Plan,” in order to keep our neighborhood small, and control our own destiny. The “Lakewood Plan” was named after the City of Lakewood, Calif., which contracted out all public functions to other jurisdictions and companies. The Del Mar water and sewer utilities were privately owned by Sam Fraser, one San Diego County Planner was assigned to Del Mar, fire services were supplied by the California Forestry Department, police were contracted with the county Sheriff, the government offices and council chambers were all located in the building now occupied by “Rusty’s” at 15th and Stratford Street — Del Mar government was really simple! Today, there are more costs and regulations of cities and counties than for individual neighborhoods.

Today, Del Mar is still the same small neighborhood, but we don’t control our own destiny! Somebody higher up tells us how many houses, including affordability, we have to have, because we are a city, not just a neighborhood. For some reason, our same small neighborhood requires a whole lot more employees, negotiating with council, neighbors, not individually paying, wages and pensions that are over-whelming our resources, because we are a city, not just a neighborhood.

Our small neighborhood has to pay for parks, beach maintenance and lifeguards for the whole world to use, because we are a city, not just a neighborhood.

No wonder the city is always talking about not financially making it as a city.

Other small neighborhoods like Rancho Santa Fe, La Jolla and Fallbrook seem to be controlling their own destiny without having all the problems and costs required of being a city — by just being a neighborhood in a larger jurisdiction.

Maybe we should give up trying to be a city — it’s costing us too much to not really control our own neighborhood destiny.

Maybe it’s time to discuss the issue.

Ralph Peck,

Del Mar

 

Kudos for columnist

Joe Moris who writes the “Baby Boomer” column in your newspaper is to be commended for his insights into what he sees as an increasingly optimistic future for the country of Mexico and an increasingly pessimistic one for the United States, for the reasons he cited in your April 5 issue.

Since he’s had property in Mexico for many years and has spent a lot of time there, I can only assume that he knows what he’s talking about on that end. Particularly in his most recent column (April 19), which was a stunning eye-opener to me as I’m sure it was to the vast majority of your readers.

Beyond his projected disaster of Obamacare, Morris points to other reasons why more and more Americans are and increasingly will be going to Mexico for their medical needs, because what can cost thousands of dollars here usually costs hundreds there; also the diagnoses of the doctors there are generally more accurate and dependable than in the U.S.

Also, more and more hospitals are being built to accommodate the increasing demands of the public, the majority being residents of the U.S.

I just had to say Kudos to Joe Moris and urge him to write more about what I’m sure the readers of Coast News aren’t going to see anywhere else.

Jim Donovan,

Del Mar