Civil engineer Steve Rogers, who – although he does not live in Mentone -has been actively helping to protect Mentone’s interests for the past give-or-take 10 years, recently forwarded to Mentone Matters the following points he made in writing to the city of Redlands, regarding its General Plan, back in 2017. Readers may be most interested in numbers 2, 3 and 5:
“The following additional comments are hereby provided concerning the City of Redlands General Plan Update (GPU) and Final Environmental Impact Report (FEIR):
1) Comment letters as provided by the State of California Department of Transportation (CalTrans), dated September 8, 2016, and the San Bernardino County Department of Public Works, dated June 23, 2017 and concerning the scope and analysis of the Traffic Impact Analysis (TIA) as being inadequate, have been ignored by City staff and the GPU EIR consultants with the Final Environmental Impact Report (FEIR) documents.
2) Figure 3.15-1 Existing Roadway Classifications shows the future extension of San Bernardino Avenue as a Proposed Arterial street to be constructed east of Crafton Avenue in the Mentone area and bisecting the former Lockheed contamination site, then curving southerly through property owned by the San Bernardino Valley Water Conservation District and eventually connecting to State Route 38 east of Garnet Street. This new intersection of San Bernardino Avenue as proposed with the State Highway (as well as with Garnet Street) has not been properly analyzed with the GPU TIA as was prepared for the EIR-FEIR and has not even been conceptually considered or approved by CalTrans, the agency responsible for the State Highway System (SHS).
3) Figure 2.3-1 General Plan Land Use inappropriately shows the Pre-zoning of property located within the unincorporated territory at Mill Creek Rd (SR38) and Garnet Street to Commercial, a change that impacts the existing historic Mill Creek store rock structure.
4) A notation on Figure 2.3-1 General Plan Land Use pertaining to the newly created Transit Village Overlay Zones associated with the Redlands Passenger Rail Project (RPRP) reads “Mixed Use Core areas and other Transit Village details are shown in maps in Section 4.5.” However, no such section is contained in the documents held in the City Clerk’s office or the Smiley Library.
5) The 200-ft wide strip of property owned by the San Bernardino County Flood Control District, east of the Wabash Avenue alignment in the Santa Ana River Wash area (APN 0168-311-02) appears to have inappropriately been annexed into the City of Redlands in 1958/9 as “inhabited” (vs “uninhabited”) territory.
6) The Redlands Sk8Park project was originally proposed to be built on property located off Park Avenue, west of University Street (APN 0170-191-38) on the southside of the railroad tracks adjacent to Sylvan Park. This property was sold by the City of Redlands to the Redevelopment Agency (RDA) by City Council action on January 15, 2008 ” for the purpose of developing future affordable housing.” Figure 2.3-1 General Plan Land Use shows the subject property instead as “Parks/ Golf Courses” and therefore would be the appropriate site for the proposed Redlands Skatepark project as opposed to destroying a portion of historic Sylvan Park which will be further impacted by the future Redlands Passenger Rail Project (RPRP), where SanBAG (now sbcta) has already incumbered an 18-foot wide strip of property along the southern edge of the park, adjacent to Park Street, under a 2015 License Agreement for use with the RPRP.”
MM believes that Redlands basically ignored these comments, especially as they relate to Mentone’s interests. MM