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| HIS VOICE |
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| Written by Ron West / For the Patterson Irrigator | |
| Saturday, 19 January 2008 | |
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The Dec. 22, 2007, editorial attack on our mayor, city council and citizens was unecessary and uninformed. What is needed as our city plans for the next 20 to 40 years is intelligent and cooperative discussion. Much hard work has gone into the general plan update, and much more will be needed. I was as disappointed and surprised as anyone when the Dec. 15 general plan workshop was canceled at the last minute. However, in retrospect, I realize that those at the city who made that difficult decision were well aware of the extreme and widespread dissatisfaction of Patterson residents with the update process and the efforts of the outside consultants. The consultants’ report for the Dec. 15 meeting had poured even more fuel on citizens’ already smoldering resentment, and the meeting would have very likely focused more on anger and accusations than on cooperative planning and communication. At every public workshop, at microphones before the council, at every citizens’ advisory committee meeting, the people of Patterson have shared their visions for Patterson’s future. And they were honest, heartfelt visions, and they were important. In more than 30 years as a planner, I have never witnessed such a positive, cooperative, and noncontroversial initial shared vision for a general plan update. And I congratulate the people of Patterson. That collective vision was of a vibrant, healthy future city, with proactive boundaries to protect our borders; with significantly increased commercial opportunities, jobs and services; with more industrial development; with expanded public and recreational facilities and opportunities; and with Patterson in control of its own future. Yet, at the same time, the vision was to protect Patterson’s traditional lifestyle, way of life and quality of life. Obviously, that is a challenge, but the people of Patterson were positive, enthusiastic and willing to cooperate to make it work. However, from the beginning, the out-of-town consultants have ignored, rejected and even mocked that vision and the input from citizens, the advisory committee and even the commission and council. The consultants have a vision, too. But they see Patterson as an academic planning exercise in “smart growth”: a compact, textbook town of higher density, taller buildings, no new commercial development for 20 years, very little industrial development, and very different types of neighborhoods than we have now. An example of their very different vision for Patterson is residential density. The citizens’ advisory committee, planning commission and council have very clearly instructed the consultants to use land wisely, but to preserve Patterson’s traditional neighborhood patterns. The consultants’ response has been annoyance and total rejection of that directive and their own plan being forced on us again and again. Their last demand was to again raise the typical density, and various average densities were proposed for consideration of up to 18 units per acre — a 450 percent increase, and considerably more dense than San Francisco. Maybe a new “textbook model” plan for Patterson would win someone design awards on university campuses or at “smart growth” planning seminars. But Patterson has the right to preserve its quality of life, to protect its borders, to provide more jobs and opportunities for its people and to control its own future. And we have a right to a peaceful, cooperative community planning process, without all the ugly and unnecessary controversy and hostility which has been created. Maybe we won’t fit the latest academic planning “model,” but Patterson is our town and our future. I believe that we are blessed with capable elected officials and with community leaders, property owners and citizens who care about Patterson. I commend all those who have expressed and continue to express their visions and hopes. We can work together to accomplish the goals we have all discussed. I look forward to the process being brought back under the control of our elected leaders and to the difficult but exciting challenge of planning for the future to proceed in a spirit of good faith and cooperation. Ron West runs a land use planning and consulting business in Patterson.
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