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

Economic Development, Environment, Resoration Economy

Entergy Louisiana Proposes $5B Grid Resilience Plan with 10 Potential Microgrids

January 25, 2023 admin Leave a comment

Louisiana Power Lines Downed by Storm Damage

A scale version of this would be very doable within RPU’s service territory. Louisiana officials are smart in that they recognize the benefits of deploying hybrid sources of generation, which buys you resiliency, flexibility and adaptability.

And again, the big win is…. we would OWN the sources of generation!

Read the story here.

UCR

UCR North District 2 Public Meeting

January 24, 2023 admin Leave a comment

UCR North District 2 Housing Conceptual Rendering

The University of California, Riverside (UCR) will be holding the first of two community project review meetings to discuss the proposed North District Phase 2 Project.

The community meeting will be held in person at the UCR Alumni Visitor Center from 6:00p.m. – 7:00p.m. on Wednesday, January 25, 2023.

Two hours of free parking (5:30p.m. – 7:30p.m.) will be available to all attendees within the Bannockburn South Parking Lot (see attached PDF with meeting location and parking). You will need to provide your license plate and email address at the following link prior to or day of the community meeting to avoid a parking violation: https://www.offstreet.io/location/SZXQHRCE

This will be an opportunity to learn more about the project, provide feedback/comments, and meet project team members.

The proposed North District Phase 2 would include approximately 1,600 student housing beds and ancillary amenity spaces in apartment-style units, within approximately 425,000 gross square feet of new construction.

The proposed project will also include parking and recreational fields. The project site is located on the northeastern corner of W. Linden Street and Canyon Crest Drive.

A copy of the meeting flyer which includes additional information and a project location map is provided on the following website under Community Meetings – https://pdc.ucr.edu/environmental-planning-ceqa)

For more information, or to submit questions or comments before or after the meeting, please contact:
Melissa Garrety, Planner
UCR Planning, Design & Construction
(951) 827-7376

planning@ucr.edu

City Of Our Dreams, Environment, Open Government, Resoration Economy, Social Capital

RTRP Vote To Find Funding For Undergrounding

January 17, 2023 admin Leave a comment

We Need Your Voice!

We were told unequivocally that undergrounding the high-powered transmission lines near Hidden Valley (Ward 7) was not possible. For fifteen years they said it was a “DONE DEAL” to place the lines overhead.

TRUTH: It was NOT a “done deal”. Truth is, they never told us the truth about any of it. This in spite of at least one public comment demanding an underground option from the start.

What a difference fifteen years of neighbors being organized , collaborative and effective in pursuing common desires. Add your voice at tomorrow’s City Council meeting.

MOTION to FIND the MONEY to underground this project will be made Tuesday, January 17^th by Councilman Chuck Conder. It is important for you to SHOW UP and show support for this motion.

We NEED action! You can speak during “Open Comment” or come to support your neighbors who are speaking and support the council members who want to see this project UNDERGROUND!

COME! Let our City know that you DO NOT want these lines overhead.

Where: City Council Chambers next to City Hall

When: Tuesday January 17, 2023

Time: 6:15 pm

Parking: FREE in the evenings, handicapped available

BACKGROUND

RRR is the neighborhood group most impacted by this. They have been fighting to have this project undergrounded since 2017 via:

EDUCATION
INFORMATION
FORUMS
SOCIAL MEDIA
COMMUNITY MEETINGS

We were not giving up! Councilman Steve Hemenway (Ward 7) took the lead when he was elected in 2019. Due to his diligence, perseverance and educating himself on this project, there is now hope to underground these lines.

He brought Councilwoman Cervantes and Councilman Fierro onboard; but these 3 council members were outvoted to change the project.

Councilman Conder now realizes that undergrounding is the “superior project”, and he will bring a motion before our Council on Tuesday to FIND THE MONEY to do so!

Please come and show support for these 4 councilpersons who have listened and responded to residents. They deserve our public support. This is a defining moment in the history of Riverside.

Steve Hemenway Ward 7
Clarissa Cervantes Ward 2
Ronaldo Fierro Ward 3
Chuck Conder Ward 4

Democarcy, Public Policy

Redistricting

January 6, 2023 admin Leave a comment

University Neighborhood

Planning Commission To Re Zone Park For STEM High School

Warehouses & Your Call To Action

Entergy Louisiana Proposes $5B Grid Resilience Plan with 10 Potential Microgrids

UCR North District 2 Public Meeting

Redistricting

A Neighborhood Of Our Dreams