High Density Condos Targeting Affordable Housing Proposed for Empire Ranch - 004
Do we want a high density, condominium complex in the middle of Empire Ranch and the Parkway?Elliott Homes is trying to build 154 condo units in three-story buildings at the corner of East Natoma Street and Golf Links Drive in the middle of Empire Ranch. While the merits of providing sufficient affordable housing in our community is laudable as an overall goal, it is not OK to use this opportunity to conveniently locate a significantly higher density condominium project right in the middle of our community. The bottom line is that everyone in Empire Ranch and the Parkway made important financial decisions to purchase their home based on the disclosure that this property was going to be a neighborhood retail shopping area. To now change the rules after everyone has purchased their home and build an additional 154 condominium units targeted to first time home buyers, or even 100 units if the buildings were all reduced to two stories, right in the middle of our planned communities of Empire Ranch and the Parkway is just not the right thing to do on behalf of the 3,000 or 4,000 home owners who are already living there.
I don't want to sound so cynical as to think that maybe this plan is not so unexpected after all, that maybe the plan to seek rezoning has been in place for some time now. Then again, coincidences like this frequently come about only with careful behind the scenes planning. Is it only because of our recent objections to this plan that the end game has now become evident? I hope this is not the case, but if it walks like a duck . . . .
NOTE: The following correction has been made to this posting: Earlier I mistakenly referred to this proposed condo project as targeting "low income" housing. It was brought to my attention that this was an incorrect statement in that true "low income" housing is a government term that signifies a much lower income level than what is actually being targeted here. While Price Walker, Project Coordinator for Elliott Homes, told the ARC that these units were aimed at first time home buyers and others who can not afford the $500,000 plus homes in Empire Ranch, in reality these units would not qualify as "low income" housing in government terms. Perhaps a more accurate way to refer to these proposed units is to say that they are more affordable to first time home buyers. I apologize for any confusion that this may have caused.
It is time for another Saturday morning meeting at Starbucks Broadstone (northwest corner of East Bidwell Street and Broadstone Parkway). I will be there this Saturday, September 3, 2005 at 08:00 A.M. to meet with anyone who can make it to strategize and come up with a working plan on how we can get the latest news and developments out to each and every resident of Empire Ranch and the Parkway. I will also have a supply of flyers printed to give out to interested parties.
Thank you again. It's a good life here in Empire Ranch and the Parkway. Lets all help to keep it that way. Make it a good day.
Best regards,
Patrick Warholic
Realtor, and Home Marketing Consultant
Contact Patrick
Website: California Home Network
The Internet Home Marketing Center
Labels: Mirabella_Condominiums
9 Comments:
At 31 August, 2005 05:24, KAREN said…
Patrick, It wouldn't the first time in my 3 years here as an EMpire Ranch resident that an affordable housing condoplex was planned for the same general area. I think the last one presented before City Council was on the site where the Silberhorn Park is slated to be built sometime in our lifetime! Silberhorn and Morningside Drive. I think the last time Parker Homes tried to squeeze in a multi-story low income condo development was approximately 2 years or so ago, residents from Lexington Hills informed me and my neighbors since it was being heard before the City Council the week we were notified of the development. "They" tried to sneak one in again. The city attorney even said there wouldn't be any impact on us as residents, no affect on the traffic, environment, and the wildlife such as deer, rabbits, coyotes, turkeys, squirrels, etc behind my house in the nature preserve would be unaffected. Another bunch of baloney. It was shot down by the huge outpouring of bodies that showed up at the final meeting before the City Council. It angers me that the City is welcoming another developer into the scheme who might possibly be able to sneak in and finally build those "affordable housing" concrete condo towers in our neighborhood.
At 31 August, 2005 13:08, Anonymous said…
I sent an email to Kerri Howell and Eric King about the Mirabella project 1 month ago. I have not heard back from Kerri Howell. I did receive an email back from Eric King stating he would look into it.
I heard about the Silberhorn project as well a couple of years ago, and I am so glad that they didn't go through.
There are multiple plots of land on Ironpoint that are planned for condos and apartments. In addition the annexation of land south of 50 has plans for high density housing. That is where the city needs to look in tems of meeting their federal requirements. They should not look to put them smack dab in the middle of single family homes, especially after those homes are already built and people were told something different than high density housing would be built on these plots of land.
The Folsom City web site home page flashes the words "trust, respect and integrity" at us. we need to hold the city council, city planners, and architectural committee to these advertised standards.
Patrick, The guy from elliott stated he wanted to meet with us privately before the next Arcitectural meeting. Any word on that yet? If I am looking at my calendar correctly the next Arcitectural meeting which is the second and fourth Thursday of the month ,would be September 8th.
At 31 August, 2005 15:05, Patrick Warholic said…
I just checked with the Planning Department regarding the published agenda for the next ARC meeting scheduled for Thursday, September 8th. Steve Banks was out for the afternoon, but I was told by Chris Longley, Planning Technician, that as far as he can determine from the tentative agenda that he saw, the Mirabella Condo project is NOT on the agenda for this next meeting.
I will check in with Steve Banks tomorrow to confirm this status once they publish the final agenda for the September 8th meeting. Typically, the final agenda is published on Thursday, one week prior to the meeting. I'll post an updated comment as soon as I get confirmation.
Regarding the offer from Price Walker, Project Coordinator for Elliott Homes, to meet with us to see if something can be worked out, I have no information regarding any such proposed meeting.
Practically speaking, I'm not too sure what could be worked out unless Elliott is willing to change the project from building 154 two and three story units targeting low income first time home buyers, to building only 45 to 50 single story, luxury units, 2,000 to 3,000 square feet with steep pitched roofs, multiple roof lines, dormers, and a full list of available upgrades, along with including a clubhouse, pool, and shaded grass picnic area. Other than that, there is not much to talk about, because there is certainly no way that ANY three story complex, or even ANY two story complex of condos targeted to low income first time home buyers could ever be made attractive enough to fit into our existing single family residence communities of Empire Ranch and the Parkway.
Several people have called me since this last posting and want do all they can to help. I am still planning on meeting with anyone who can make it at Starbucks Broadstone (East Bidwell and Broadstone Parkway) this Saturday, September 3rd at 08:00 A.M.
Hope to see as many people there as possible. I will have flyers and petitions printed out for distribution.
At 02 September, 2005 20:23, Patrick Warholic said…
The Architectural Review Commission (ARC)meeting scheduled for Thursday, September 8th has been cancelled. This is good news for us in that we need more time to get the word out to all interested parties, so as to present a unified voice of opposition to the ARC first, and then subsequently to the Planning Commissioners regarding the rezoning request, and then to City Council if it gets that far.
I am still planning to meet with anyone who wants to strategize on how we can best get the word out to every household in Empire Ranch and the Parkway. I will be at Statbucks Broadstone (NW corner of East Bidwell and Broadstone Parkway) tomorrow morning, Saturday September 3rd at 08:00 A.M.
I have copies of the informational flyer available on this site as well as petitions for distribution. We need help in passing out these flyers and in getting petitions signed, so I welcome any and all who are able to stop by.
Regards,
Patrick Warholic
At 06 September, 2005 21:32, Anonymous said…
By proposing the high density condo project, the Empire Ranch developer had betrayed Empire Ranch home owners. When we purchased our houses, an Empire Ranch master plan was presented to us, the master plan made these single family houses attractive, and the house prices in Empire Ranch are higher than some other areas in Folsom because of the Empire Ranch master plan. By adding high density condos in the neighborhood, it makes our single family housing neighborhood less attractive to home owners and home buyers.
This high density housing project will create problems to overcrowd Empire Ranch schools, roads and housing price inequality as well as the single family housing style in the neighborhood.
Talking about overcrowding roads, imagine there are 300 more cars from the 154 high density condos coming out onto golf link street every morning. The single lane golf link street is already very busy in the morning when everyone goes to work.
As home owners in Empire Ranch, we must protect our neighborhood from overcrowding and our investment in our houses.
At 09 September, 2005 14:20, Anonymous said…
Hello everybody, and Thank you Patrick for bringimg this to our attention. Is there anyway we can start an email alert so we know when the next meetings are. By that i mean we either get an email a day or two before and then we can try to make it to the meetings. If anybody intrested they can leave their email address with you or I can collect them, make a group email and email everyone on the newest events and upcoming meetings. I really don't want to see a decreas of 5-10% in my house value just because Elliott wants to make more money and build a high density condos after they made all the big $$$$ through the master plan. Now that they can't sell those high priced houses they want to make money from this peace of land which is not fair.
Lets all help and Stop this project so we can keep our house values up and where its supposed to be..
At 14 September, 2005 14:53, Patrick Warholic said…
My comment regarding the previous posting by someone requesting an e-mail alert for up coming meetings is that the intentions are obviously good and we definitely need to communicate regularly, but it is my feeling that e-mails are tough enough to keep under control as it is. We all get too many junk e-mails and spam.
That is one reason that I started this community forum blog. Everyone can enter their own comments and announcements and the information is then available to a much wider audience than would be the case with a finite e-mail distribution list.
Please check in daily to see if there is any additional information posted. In fact, one person told me that they set up this blog site as their internet browser home page. To do that, all you need to do in Internet Explorer is go to the Tools menu, click on Internet Options, and then under Home Page select "Use Current". That way, when you bring up Internet Explorer, you will automatically come to this blog. (Which, for those who may not know what a blog is, it is a shortened version of the term Web Log, which is a log of comments posted by one or various people.)
I will do my best to keep the very most current information available as part of my latest posting, which in this case is #005 that was posted in an overlapping time frame with the person who published the previous comment shown above.
I think the information shown in Posting #005 answers many of the questions asked by this person. If I missed something, or if anyone has any additional questions or comments, please enter comments at the bottom of the latest posting.
Thank you very much for your interest and help in this matter.
Best regards,
Patrick Warholic
At 05 October, 2005 20:27, Anonymous said…
Again! I cannot believe that Elliot Homes and the city of Folsom is trying to pull a fast one again on the residence of Empire Ranch and its Community. We keep coming across this strong desire to build affordable housing near Empire Oaks School. Any land including the ranch next to Empire Oaks is not acceptable to anyone and we will always fight for this issue. The re-Zoning of this parcel of land again is the worse area; the school is already struggling with school supplies and asking all of us to help with money and working in the classrooms. 154 more condominiums are not only going to cause for more children in each classroom, which we feel, is already to many but also adding that many more will cause even less time for the teachers to spend individual time with each child. We don’t need anymore housing near the school and adding these condo’s doesn’t help anyone other than allow Elliot Home to make more money. We all know this will turn into another rental investment issue, as did the John Laing Town Homes in Empire Ranch. This will also allow an environment of renting to larger families and non-family occupancy. This is all happening right across the street with our children walking by an open parking area with 154 new residents. This could also become a prime location for sex offenders making their new home in Folsom in this Multi-family re-zoning area. The best solution has been for the past 5 years now is to build a small shopping strip that offers small business to do business within Empire Ranch. This would allow our teachers a place to eat for lunch or other services and for parents to meet and visit with each other.
At 06 October, 2005 23:10, Anonymous said…
The original Empire Ranch was designed was approved. STOP CHANGING WHAT WE ALL EXPECTED WHEN WE BOUGHT HERE!!! Its as simple as that. Anything else is just some money hungry developer in my opinion. Go somewhere else. Lets stop the nonsense!!!.
Send around a petition and I will gladly sign it.
Anonymous resisdent, Orchard Terrace Ct.
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