Woodridge Too Big and Too Invasive

Miguel Bustillo’s article “Woodridge Builders Go on Offensive With 3000 Mailers” (July 4) was, as far as it went, excellent.

What we need now, though, is an article on the real impacts of this huge development on the existing quality of life of the adjoining neighborhoods. The draft environmental impact report gives us some clues:

* Slope encroachment will be “unavoidably significant” for access road construction. (Page 2.0-10)

* There will be “significant” and “unavoidable” impacts on districtwide parks. (Page 2.0-35)

And this even assumes that the new residents will use the as-yet-to-be-started Lang Ranch park that is a minimum of three road miles away.

* The traffic on Sunset Hills Boulevard, next to a neighborhood park, will triple. (Figure 5.4-4 and 5.4-5)

With no mention of the potential for these drivers to find routes through existing neighborhoods to avoid the SR23 jam as an increasing number of other commuters have.

* The noise, dust and erosion of moving over three-quarters of a million cubic yards of fill. (Page 5.2-13)

* The doubling of smog-causing pollutants in the area. (Page 6.3-15)

Strangely allowable if the developer pays a fee of $328,776 to the city. (Page 5.3-20)

* The generation of more storm runoff than even the as-yet-to-be-built Lang Ranch basin is being designed to accommodate. (Page 5.4-16)

* The challenge of trying to convince wildlife to migrate down a 3,200-foot-long, 50- to 200-foot-wide corridor next to a housing development (Page 5.9-70)

We would have better luck trying to get them on the usually empty TOT buses and busing them.

* The “introduction of light and glare to an undeveloped site [which] could create annoyance to viewers in the surrounding area. . . . Without mitigation, this impact would be significant.” (Page 5.5-25)

* The introduction of “people and structures into a location that is designated as a high fire hazard area, and [that] has a relatively high emergency response time. (Page 5.11-8)

Mitigation measures involve emergency escape routes and the use of residential sprinklers. (Page 5.11-10)

The one redeeming feature of this development, in the eyes of its supporters, is the dedication of 625 acres of open space. But even this claim needs to be understood for what it is, “making a virtue out of a necessity.” Every acre that could be developed is. If it’s not, it’s only because they couldn’t.

The bottom line, in the view of the people who live in the affected zone, is that it is too big, will be too invasive, and for some reason is

being too well supported by council members whose ties to developers are too widely suspected.

As for the council: “Don’t convince us that it can be made to happen. Convince us that it should be allowed to happen.” Be on our side, not theirs.

WAYNE A. POSSEHL

Thousand Oaks