Something Like This COULD Happen

Here is what could happen if Bob gets his way to build 850 Senior Housing Units.

The names of the "guilty" are fictitious, but the concept is accurate.

Bob and his group who are full of B.s. (Bisno support) want older San Pedrans to be able to sell their old house and buy (yea that is really going to happen, how about "rent") a Senior Housing unit at Ponte Vista. They want this so much that Bob is already claiming he will offer a "San Pedro First" incentive to attract folks now living in San Pedro to just move a little north.

Jack Stimsen, remember I am not going to use real person's names, and his wife Abby live in a single family home which is on land currently zoned R2, like so many other houses in San Pedro.

Jack and Abby decide to sell their house and buy a condo at Ponte Vista. Jack and Abby are going to get the "San Pedro First" incentives and since they bought their house prior to 1978, they are going to also get to move their Proposition 13 tax savings with them.

Around the corner, lurking in the background is Mack Panoramic. He is a banker who specializes in finding buyers of housing on lots allowing for higher density. He wants buyers to go through him to purchase Jack and Abby's house, tear it down, and build two units on the one R-2 lot.

Jack and Abby don't mind that because it means a good high price for a very old home, and Mac Panoramic likes the idea because he get a commission on dealing a house to investors who probably don't even live in this country.

Jack and Abby move into Ponte Vista, along with their cats and two cars.

Mac Panoramic and his done deal helps the investors who bought Jack and Abby's old home find a contractor to take down the one house and build two units.

So this is what we will probably see from the original sale of Jack and Abby's house:

Jack and Abby take their incentives, tax savings and two cars and move from one location in San Pedro, to another.

Mac Panoramic's investors sell their recently redeveloped property to someone who finds two families of four people each to move into the two brand new units.

Each four-member family has two adults, both with cars, and two school-age children.

At the new units, parking needs to be provided not for the two cars Jack and Abby own, but for the four cars that the four adults use.

Also at the new units, there are four kids that now need to go to schools that are already over crowded.

Jack and Abby's move of two people and two cars, have now generated a total of ten humans moving, with probably eight persons moving into San Pedro from somewhere else.

Now also instead of two cars transversing through neighborhoods, there are now 6, all in San Pedro.

Bob Bisno wants this type of thing to happen to as many of his 850 proposed Senior condos as possible.

What might this really do to San Pedro? Where once we had two people, two cars, and one house, we now find ten people living in San Pedro, six vehicles, schooling requirements for four kids that weren't needed before, and more infrastructure for everybody.

Can anybody explain to me how anyone can consider this "smart growth" for San Pedro?

Now it is very true that not all of the San Pedrans Bob is trying to get to move into Ponte Vista live in housing on multiple-density zoned lots, but there are quite a few R2 and above lots around San Pedro, especially in "older" areas of San Pedro, exactly in the areas Bob is trying to get older folks to move from, and into one of his units.

What might happen if 1/4 of the 850-proposed Senior units have the same type of happenings that the Jack and Abby and Mac Panoramic scenario have?

Let's say 212 Senior units have the same thing happen.

424 San Pedrans move from one San Pedro address to another. Eight times (these are the new residents of the new units build on land once occupied by single-family houses) 212 older single-family houses equals 1,696 new residents, coming into San Pedro from somewhere else.

This also means that 424 vehicles move parking places from one San Pedro address to another, and 848 more cars need to find parking places in San Pedro.

848 school-age children will need to find seats in classrooms, somewhere in San Pedro.

So in the end, if only 1/4 of the proposed Senior units get the same scenario, then the population of San Pedro will grow by 1,696 new residents, while not losing any of the 424 folks that simply moved from one place to another.

Bob will be very happy, Mac Panoramic will be very happy, Jack and Abby will be very happy, the 1,696 new residents of San Pedro might be very happy, and all of the rest of us will have to deal with all of them, whether we like it or not.

Let us just hope beyond hope that some seniors now living on lots zoned R4 don't decide to move into Ponte Vista.

This post is fantasy, I HOPE, and will never come close to panning out the way Bob Bisno might want it to. But this fantasy can illustrate some of the things that could happen if Bob gets his way.

We need to watch out for the realities, and even some of the things we now feel are just fantasies. If we don't, who knows what other fantasies Bob may have up his sleeve.