Category Archives: Public Policy

Community Needs Assessment Survey

May 3, 2023 admin Leave a comment

Community Needs Assessment Survey

We are looking for many friends to help us share this community needs assessment survey with as many Riverside County residents as possible.

This survey data is collected annually by Community Action Partnership and Inland SoCal United Way, and helps to drive priorities for CAP programs to align with community interests and needs. If you’re curious about what CAP does, check out their website: https://capriverside.org/

Surveys are intended for residents of Riverside County. You may choose to remain anonymous, or include contact information to be eligible for prizes. For questions, please ask Mark at the contact info below. Survey deadline: May 15^th.

Please spend a few moments to take the survey and share with your friends and neighbors. Here are links to the flyers in English and Spanish.

City Of Our Dreams, Public Policy, Social Capital

UNA Apr 2023 Meeting Agenda

April 12, 2023 admin Leave a comment

Map and Directions To Crest Community Church
3431 Mt Vernon Ave, Riverside, CA 92507

1. Welcome – Introductions 5 min.

2. Nora Update 15 min.

3. Highland Elementary Name Change 20 min.

Hello,

My name is Denise Allen, and I am a teacher at Highland Elementary School, and also have lived in the neighborhood for 30+ years. I am unable to attend the April UNA meeting, but I was asked by the principal of the school to get input on a possible name change to the elementary school.

The Riverside Unified School District is considering a name change for Highland Elementary School effective next fall. The District would like to change the name of the school to honor the Harada family of Riverside, a prominent Japanese-American family who were interned during World War II.

From Wikipedia:

The Harada House is a historic house in Riverside, California. The house was the focus of a critical application of the California Alien Land Law of 1913, which prevented foreigners who were ineligible for citizenship from owning property. The state of California attempted to seize the property from the family in California v. Harada, but the Haradas ultimately won the case and retained ownership of the house. The house, created in 1884 and built upon by the Harada family, was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1990^[4] and is currently overseen by the Museum of Riverside.

The Harada House is located on the east side of Riverside on Lemon Street. A book has been written on the Harada history: The House on Lemon Street.

There will be a community meeting on Friday, April 28th at 5:30 p.m. at Highland Elementary School to present the possible name change and receive community input. I was wondering if you would be able to announce this at the UNA meeting next week? The district also plans to mail out flyers to neighborhood homes, but it is helpful for people to know as early as possible if they have questions or input.

Please feel free to contact me if you have questions, input, or other thoughts about this process for the school district leaders.

Thank you,

Denise Allen

Highland Elementary School

Riverside Unified School District

3. Council Updates 20 min.

4. UCR Updates 10 min

5. Announcements 10 min

6. Speaker Suggestions 2023

Neighborhood Issues & Resources

Follow Our Courts

US Covid Atlas

Riverside Neighborhood Partnership

Neighbors Better Together

Parks, Public Policy, Transportation, UCR

Planning Commission To Re Zone Park For STEM High School

February 15, 2023 admin Leave a comment

The proposed STEM school site on Blaine and Canyon Crest, contains two parcels of property.

One belonging to UCR, the other to the city of Riverside.

This Thursday, Feb 16 at 9am at city hall, RUSD will be presenting to the city’s planning commission a proposal to change the zoning on the city owned property in order to build the school. After hearing the presentation, the commission will make its recommendation to the city council for a final vote.

Make an E Comment, Call in or Zoom it.

We need everyone to come to the meeting or contact the planning commission to let them know our concerns about these possible changes and the impact they will have on our community.

Because this is a zoning meeting, it has been highly recommended that we focus our opposition to the zone change on issues that we feel will impact our community. Key factors to consider are:

This is not a neighborhood school where traditionally students walk to. This is a commuter school bringing school buses and hundreds of cars into our area.
District’s proposal indicates 1,200 students and 60 staff members. The proposal does not address the need for a parking lot to accommodate this many people. There are no places for parents to line up when dropping off and picking up students on Blaine, Canyon Crest, Rustin and Linden.
The proposal is to have the flow of school traffic go from Blaine to Canyon Crest then right onto the narrow parking lot by the ball fields, then exiting onto Rustin. Rustin is a very narrow two lane street already jammed with apt. cars parking on both sides of the street. Traffic from the STEAM school on the corner of Rustin and Linden already is impacting Linden and Rustin.
There is no legal parking/waiting on either side of Blaine.
UCR will begin the 2nd phase of building a 1,600 student dorm from Blaine towards Linden across from the proposed STEM site. The parking lot for the dorm will be similar to the one near Watkins with egress and ingress onto Blaine. This will severely impact traffic flow around Blaine and Canyon Crest
With the 1,260 STEM population, along with 1,600 UCR dorm students, rezoning will result in nearly 3,000 people crammed into a very small block area.
Canyon Crest is a two lane road already jammed with RTA buses, commuter cars, cyclists and pedestrians.
Rezoning will eliminate the only developed Park and Rec facility in our community. We may lose our baseball/softball and soccer fields . This field is used often by UCR intramural sports, community sport clubs and other community organizations needing a large field.
Less than a 1/2 mile from the proposed school, plans are to tear down the old Kmart on 3^rd and Iowa and construct a 1-3 bedroom complex adding hundreds of cars onto Blaine/3rd and Iowa.
Less than 1/2 mile from the proposed school site is the new warehouse on the corner of Watkins and Spruce, which will now bring commercial trucks into our neighborhood.
With the STEM traffic, UCR dorm(s) traffic, the new apt. complex at Kmart traffic, the warehouse on Spruce and Watkins trucks, the cross town commuters by passing the freeway, traffic jams already around the North High School, University Heights Middle and Highland Elementary school, rezoning this property is detrimental in increasing harmful carbon emissions from cars, buses and trucks into the air affecting especially those with health issues, our children and the elderly living in our neighborhoods.

We must first ask for a denial for this zone change or a least ask for a postponement on rezoning until an in-depth traffic and environmental study independent of the district is conducted.
We must demand that the district present a detailed plan to the commission and to the community addressing our concerns with traffic, parking and environmental issues before a decision is made to rezone, something the district has denied us for years.

We need you to contact the planning commission expressing your opposition to rezoning the city property.

Email the commissioners at fandrade@riversideca.gov. There is no individual email for each commissioner. Your email will be disseminated to each commissioner.

You are limited to 3 minutes if participating orally on Thursday, Feb 16 at 9am.

Speak in person on Thursday, Feb16 at city hall.
Calling in at (669) 900-6833 and enter Meeting ID: 926 9699 1265. Press star 9 (*9) to request to speak. Individuals in the queue will be prompted to press star 6 (*6) to unmute and speak.
By zoom at: https://zoom.us/j/92696991265 . Select the “raise hand” function to request to speak. An on-screen message will prompt you to “unmute” and speak.

Follow along with the meeting via www.RiversideCA.gov/Meeting or Riverside TV

cable channels,

Please pass this along to family and neighbors. Any additional comments to add to the list are welcomed.

Health, Public Policy

Warehouses & Your Call To Action

February 12, 2023 admin Leave a comment

Inland Empire Warehouses along 15 Freeway looking N to mountains

It’s time for another R-NOW 5-minute action.

This one is a public comment for the City of Riverside Land Use Planning Committee meeting on Monday, Feb. 13th. We want to support the policy recommendations made by City staff to strengthen the Good Neighbor Guidelines for warehouses and clarify some important ones for the Committee to consider.

CLICK HEREto automatically open the email or cut and paste the text from below
Sign your name and zip code (Do not skip this step)
Send

Of course, if you can make comments in person at the City Council Chambers on Monday, February 13 at 3:30 pm, that would be great.

You can also call in. For the agenda and information on the meeting, click here.

Talking Points For Your Comments:

Subject: Land Use Planning Public Comment for Agenda Item 2

Dear Land Use Planning Committee,

As a member of Riverside Neighbors Opposing Warehouses (R-NOW), I would like to thank the City of Riverside Land Use, Sustainability, and Resilience Committee and City Staff for putting together the Matrix of Potential Policy Actions to improve land use within the City. R-NOW supports all the sustainable development and notice requirements proposed.

Of utmost importance, we want to strongly support p.3 of the matrix on Good Neighbor Guidelines:

1. Amend Development Standards/GNG 2020 to include protections for additional Sensitive Receptors – we again ask for a Title 19.130 category that limits building sizes to <500,000 square feet within 1,500 feet of homes.

2. Revise FAR and maximum building size adjacent to sensitive receptors – Allow no more than 3 buildings of any size category adjacent to sensitive receptors with a cumulative maximum size of no more than 3x the max building size within that distance range (less than 200’ – 30,000 sq.ft., 200-800 feet, 300,000 sq.ft. 800-1500 feet, 1,500,000 sq.ft.)

Thank you for bringing this forward. We firmly believe that the City of Riverside can and should lead the region towards more sensible zoning that puts quality of life on equal footing with economic development.

Sincerely,

Quick reminder: If you have any questions or issues to discuss, please reply to me.

In Solidarity,

Jen

tinyurl.com/rivnow