Rezoning in Lakewood
I was invited to attend a neighborhood meeting concerning a rezoning for one of our neighbors in Lakewood, and wanted to say that I am alarmed at what I witnessed as the nature of our City management in this city.
Many adjacent homeowners attended the meeting to support a fellow neighbor, who has been asking Lakewood to downzone his property to R1A farmland. He owns a 2-acre lot with an old historic farm house. The City proceeded to conduct the review for his downzoning to R1A in March.
During the last few months, City planners told him arbitrarily that now he could no longer rezone to R1A. That he would have to instead rezone to PD (Planned Development). In fact, they said, if he chose to try to downzone to R1A, they would stop him by refusing to make a recommendation, despite all of his neighbors being 100% in favor of the farmland zoning. Neighbors asked why both the property owner and the neighborhood couldn’t simply get the zoning they requested. The planners had no answer except to say that “City Hall” has some “long term plan”
The lack of representation, ethics, and honesty is a mini-reflection of the dictatorial nature of our government today, and a perfect example of why I am running for Mayor of Lakewood this year. Lakewood citizens deserve better.
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The City of Lakewood wants to pave over every last remaining acre of open land. The mayor and city manager Mike Rock do not want us to be a suburb - we should be urbanized to the fullest extent possible! Big Brother knows what's good for a man's property - and it's DEVELOP, not preserve. I'm voting for Rita for mayor. Mike Rock's days in power are limited.
Posted by Denise on September 29, 2007 03:28 PMGood luck, Rita! Wish I was a resident of Lakewood so I could vote for you.
When I moved here 26 years ago, I thought I died and went to heaven. Surrounded by horse pastures, no super highway seperating us from the foothills, pitch black and total silence at night, we could see every constellation in the night sky. Every morning I would get up, go to my window and breathe in the piney smell of the hills. Heaven.
Today, every square inch of that wonderful open space is covered with houses, multiple churches, strip malls and the list goes on. No more piney smell, either. That has been replaced by exhaust fumes. The once black sky now has a bright orange glow from the highway lighting and the silence is now replaced by the whooshing sound of vehicles flying down the highway. The wildlife has all but disappeared, save a few coyotes howling now and then. No matter how many signatures we gathered or how many county planning & zoning meetings we attended to object to this wild development, they did what they wanted. Decisions were made in advance and the meetings were just for show.
Our quality of life does not matter to government. MONEY DOES. They will trample right over your house if it's in the way and to hell with you.
And illegals by the millions filling the spaces, too. They have more rights than we do , you know. In fact, they are probably the ones that will do building!
Sad state of affairs.
Posted by c on September 29, 2007 08:26 PM