Next week voters in Cypress will decide whether or not they want to give up the last expanses of open space in the city. Measure GG is a ballot measure that would allow the City of Cypress to rezone about 300 acres at the Los Alamitos Race Track and permit large developments to include low-density and medium density residences, retail establishments, restaurants, entertainment venues, and commercial development.
Next week voters in Cypress will decide whether or not they want to give up the last expanses of open space in the city. Measure GG is a ballot measure that would allow the City of Cypress to rezone about 300 acres at the Los Alamitos Race Track and permit large developments to include low-density and medium density residences, retail establishments, restaurants, entertainment venues, and commercial development.
The initiative includes a proposed 20-acre park, but currently it’s planned to be an empty 20-acre plot of land that could have a park. The city would have to buy the land and develop the park at taxpayers’ expense. Taxpayers will pay the bill so get your wallets out.
The developments could drastically change the landscape of Cypress. The significant increase in traffic will likely create extensive bumper-to-bumper traffic on Katella, Valley View, Walker, Cerritos, and neighborhood streets where drivers try to cut through to escape the traffic.
Think Valley View is heavy now? Wait until after the developments are done building out the projects.
I have experience writing and editing Environmental Impact Statements and Environmental Impact Reports, and understand the environmental issues that go with them. I know Cypress, lived here for 50 years. I also certainly know the proposed projects at the Los Alamitos Race Track will face deep environmental scrutiny ranging from site cleanup, to storm water, groundwater, surface water to traffic impacts. There are significant concerns on all of these, but nobody has mentioned the side effects of all this.
I’ll try to here.
Background
Firstly, Dr. Allred, who owns the track, is a good guy and has said the closure of the track is not imminent, but he’s also 80 years old and keenly aware nobody will want to run the track after he’s gone. Horse race tracks have been closing and the revenue they bring in has been declining significantly.
However, a sore spot still sits with many Cypress residents. A few years ago Cypress voters felt bamboozled with Measure L, an initiative promising senior housing on 33 acres at the old golf course property. What was included in the initiative was a massive development from Pro Logis including a huge warehouse facility with dozens of trucks bays and smoke-spewing trucks. Residents were outraged after it passed. People in Cypress are not anti-growth. They hate the traffic and want smart growth.
Measure GG
Now to the meat of what the developments are all about. According to the plan there will be five total districts with a variety of developments. One district along Cerritos Avenue could be approximately 93 acres consisting of single-family housing and medium density housing. Much of the homes will be single-family homes so the density should be pretty low.
A second 31.8 acre district, bordering Katella Avenue may be called the Town Center and Commons and could include a mix of retail, commercial, restaurants, entertainment and medium-density residential. The density will be higher with more people and cars.
A third 23.3 acre district along Cerritos Avenue could be an expansion of the Town Center. The plan includes commercial with the possibility of medium-density residential. It is quite possible most of this development will be medium-density residential and would include more housing than people are being told. It says it’s an option.
A fourth district includes a 20-acre park. At this point the land is slated to be empty and the city doesn’t even own the land. How much does property cost per acre in that area? $1 million or more? The city would have to buy the land and develop the park, at a significant cost to the taxpayers. Nothing in the ballot measure says the city magically gets the property.
According to the plan, the 93-acre residential district combined with the 31.8 acre Town Center and Commons District will contain 1250 multi-family and medium-density housing units. An additional 34 units of senior housing might be built near Barton Place on Katella Avenue for a total of 1284.
Town Center
One point that’s not clear is the number of medium-density housing units slated for the expansion portion of the Town Center project. The plan says it’s optional and vague whether it’s included in the numbers. I’ll assume the 1250 is not included in the mass numbers and assume the 23.3 acres will be developed into medium-density units at 7 units per acre, which is a standard average for multi-family medium-density developments. It could be higher. That would bring a minimum of 250 additional units. The total number of housing will reach more than 1500. These are minimum numbers. There could be more but nobody is saying that out loud. The writing is vague.
Environmental Review
With a development this big, environmental reviews are a certainty. I can name 8 or 10 issues that will have to be addressed. The first and probably biggest environmental issue is site clean up. After more than 50 years of horse stables, the soil and ground water is probably contaminated from animal waste. Take your dog let it poop and never clean up the mess in the backyard for 50 years. Then pour 50 large water tanks of urine on it, then dig in and see what it smells like. A site examination and cleanup will undoubtedly be required. What’s not known is the contaminants and to what levels and how deep. Horse urine and droppings contaminates the soil and can infiltrate into the groundwater. Let’s hope not. Back in the 1970s there was an extensive cleanup and excavation of soil at the cow pasture across from Landell School and there was a myriad of issue then.
A similar issue took place in the 1980s when the old tank farm at Moody and Orange was decommissioned and turned into single-family homes. At the time water wells in the area showed traces of toxic petroleum in both the soil and groundwater and tons of dirt had to be removed, but tests showed the levels did not exceed EPA standards.
Traffic
Traffic is a huge issue not brought up in the ballot measure. On Katella and Valley View streets, Cal Trans, which actually gives grades to traffic flow, gave both streets low grades in 2014, which is the last time data has been provided. Cal Trans measures traffic flow by a Level of Service. The Level of Service (LOS) is a qualitative measure of operating conditions within a traffic stream and perception by motorists.
It generally describes conditions in terms of factors such as speed, travel time, freedom to maneuver and safety. Level A has delays less than 10 seconds; Level B has delays from 11 to 15 seconds; Level C has delays from 16 to 25 seconds; Level D has delays from 26-35 seconds; Level E has delays from 36 to 50 seconds and Level F has waits longer than 50 seconds. What score did Valley View and Katella receive in 2014? Both thorough fares in the afternoon rush hour received D grades, meaning commuters must wait a minimum of 26-35 seconds before moving through the intersection. That’s a minimum. Sometimes it takes two green lights to get through Katella while commuting on Valley View. That’s not D or E, that’s an F. Traffic problems are not even mentioned in the ballot measure. An EIS will certainly need to address it.
How many additional car trips will be generated from the proposed developments near the race track? With an estimated 1500 new housing units in the city with an average of 2.5 people per household, the Cypress population could increase by a minimum of 3000. The Bureau of Transportation Stats shows there’s an average of 9.6 vehicle trips per household per day, so on an average day there will be more than 20,000 car trips in the race track area on a given day. The statistics does not include shoppers that come to shop to the new retail, restaurants and entertainment venues from different cities. Those numbers are impossible to produce simply because we don’t know what is going there yet.
In summary, Measure GG allows for a zone change from open space and allows mega-projects to be built that will bring a myriad of problems in a plethora of ways. A thorough review of all the development should be undertaken beforehand so residents don’t approve a zone change, only to find out that some of the projects won’t work and something else ends up being proposed.