About this
time every two years I get the urge to walk around Westridge
and talk with my neighbors about local politics. It’s almost always a solitary
mission, and I like it that way. I’ve determined the shortest possible route to
cover the entire precinct-- valuable information, by the way, for anyone
interested in maximizing their Halloween night haul.
This year
was different. I teamed up with City Council candidate Tiffany Renee and
husband Jaimey. I wanted the opportunity to talk with
Tiff about local issues anyway, so it was a two-birds-with-one-stone
arrangement. That’s an awful metaphor, by the way, especially considering the
big fuss T & J made over the mourning dove family nested on the front porch
beam, just a few feet from my door. Mama Dove stood guard over her two scruffy
youngsters, obviously way too big for their nest, but not quite ready to fly
off.
My wife and
I knew what Mama and Papa were thinking, our youngest having recently flown off
(in his brother’s car, a week after graduating from high school in March, to
live with his sister in Utah, with his Canadian fiancée he met on the internet
last year and in person the day after his graduation… it’s a long story!) One
day, nest too full… next day, too empty. Well, in his case, it’s taking more
than a day!
I don’t
know many of my neighbors very well, I’m sorry to say. We’ve lived the past 14
years in one of those subdivisions designed to maximize privacy, and in effect fostering
an unhealthy isolation and reliance on automobiles. It’s a neighborhood where
unplanned positive interactions among neighbors are rare, a problem
What often first
pulls neighborhoods together is not parties, but threats. Crime, natural calamity,
or large-scale adjacent development get people
cooperating to protect their individual interest. My neighborhood has gathered
to deal with a jogging burglar, speeders and stop sign runners, and disaster
preparedness. They’ve also organized to influence the design of residential
construction on hillsides adjacent to the Westridge
Open Space.
Tiff, who
chairs a committee that is creating a hillside protection ordinance, was
particularly interested in one these projects, a residence built several years
ago. After a series of public hearings, the City had approved the project, as
they should, since it had been part of the master plan for the subdivision. The
City required some design changes and a natural landscaping plan to help the
project fit in with its setting. So the house was built, everything looked
fine. But one day this spring, surveyor stakes appeared, and a few days later heavy
equipment arrived to spend three full weeks radically re-shaping an acre of
hillside adjacent to the open space, for a future swimming pool, playing field
and sports court.
It appears
the owner never filed the landscaping plan, but the City allowed the house to
be built and occupied nonetheless, and now they claim to have no design control
over this “landscaping.” I don’t think
the City intended to leave a bulldozer-sized loophole in the conditions of
approval, yet it would be unfair for the City to *now* ask the homeowner to put
all the dirt back where it started, and re-open the review process. I hope it
will turn out fine for everyone; at least the experience can inform the
drafting of the hillside ordinance.
I agree
that resolution of neighborhood issues through discussion and agreement among
neighbors is preferable to regulation and (especially) litigation. I’d like to
see more opportunities for casual contact and conversation in *existing*
neighborhoods, whether it’s community gardens, housing and nature restoration
volunteer projects, tool libraries… maybe, even, special fireworks permits for
block parties!