Friday, February 02, 2007

Draw Your Dream II

Several months ago I created a post titled "Draw Your Dreams". I included illustrations of the Ponte Vista site, including one that just was an outline of the property with everything inside left blank. Go back into the archives of this blog and take a peek, please.

I had hoped some folks would actually think about what they might really want to see at Ponte Vista, and would be willing to create their own dream site and send it too me. Perhaps it was too much to request back then because I hadn't posted my dream for what I would most prefer on the 61.53 acres of land in northwest San Pedro.

The first illustration is my dream site. As you should easily be able to see, there are zero residences on the site. My dream shows a combination of recreational and open space uses that would benefit many folks in many different communities, allowing for a mixed set of uses that are not necessarily found locally.

Picnic tables, a jogging and walking paths, ball fields, park lands, a creek with a small lake, a community center, basketball courts, open access to Mary Star High School, and other more common amenities are included to provide a very open style park and recreational facility.

What I also added in my dream is a live steam track for folks who enjoy the passion of running small scale live steam trains and for people of all ages who enjoy riding them. There are two radio controlled vehicle race tracks in my dream. One is for race cars who race on paved or concrete surfaces, and the other track is for young and old who want the challenge of off-road racing, but on a very small scale.

Groups who meet to enjoy live steam trains and radio controlled race fans would be able to have their own meeting rooms in the community center. Also inside the community center would be an interpretive center for learning about the indigenous plants and animals that would be found in the open space on the north side of the site. Wouldn't it be great to have the same type of habitat the Palos Verdes Blue Butterfly now uses farther north of the site, grown on my dream site so the blue butterflies might actually visit the area and folks could watch them?

As you can see from my dream and the artist's illustration of the Mary Star campus, I am neither an artist or an illustrator. But what the heck? I still use my old Adobe Photoshop Deluxe 4.0 to create and edit photos and illustrations, and if I can do it on an old program, you might be able to create a much better illustration of your dream.

So below, I have included another illustration of the blank Ponte Vista site. I also included the illustration of the Mary Star of the Sea High School campus so you have an idea of where it fits onto the eastern border of Ponte Vista.






In the illustration below, you should be able to see the outline of the boundaries of Ponte Vista and the Mary Star campus. Currently there are problems with the artist's conception of the Ponte Vista site because the road they drew for access to Mary Star would end just about onto the baseball field or a field too far away from the parking lot to be of any use.

You should be able to click on the illustration and it should grow so you can make a copy of it and go to your editing program to draw your dream.



Of course even I know that the Ponte Vista site won't be barren of residences and residents. But I have a dream and so might you.

I would strongly encourage anyone planning to just copy Mr. Bisno's dream of 2,300 homes to avoid doing that because there is very little, if any, chance that 2,300 homes would actually be built on the site. If your dream of senior housing, that would be great! The more, the better. If you dream of a development of more than 1,000 homes, you might want to make 60% of them senior housing and put them behind gates.

Good luck dreaming of the access road to Mary Star. It may be a tuffy unless you use the current S. John Montgomery Drive that I used as part of my public road through my dream.

I know there are some artists who regularly visit this blog from the great blog; Life on the edge. I hope one or two of them might want to share their dream.

Now that we are moving from commenting on the DEIR to actually putting the pieces together for a specific plan, perhaps your illustration might include items you feel would be good at the development and be incorporated in the specific plan.

First and foremost, please have only fun if you do take up the challenge to draw your dream for Ponte Vista. My dream was fun to think about and draw even though I know it will never happen. Hope springs eternal, so they say.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hey, Henry Wadsworth Wells, good poem in the Coastal Currents! Keep up the fight..

Anonymous said...

did anybody see megan bagdonas' article about ATSAC in this week's MOre San Pedro?

It includes some quotes from CAC members and Mr. Bisno.

M Richards said...

Hey anonymous 8:34 PM, I finally saw the article and poem I am credited with in the February edition of Coastal Current.

I actually distributed the poem to fellow "ranting elitists" to get a chuckle. I didn't think John would print it, but well, it is out there.

I sang the song "Little Boxes" along with my mother who played it almost constantly on the record player when I was little. My mom was a progressive and still is when she remembers to be one.
For those of you who remember Nancy Wells from S.P.H.S. or First Presbyterian, she is doing as well as can be expected with her alzheimer's and has a bird's eye view of the intersection of Western Avenue and Summerland.
MW