11/20/2008

Post date: Mar 23, 2013 9:15:49 PM

River Oaks Neighborhood Association Board Meeting

Thursday November 20, 2008

7:00 PM @ Premier Pizza, River Oaks

Present: Jean, Laura, Mike, Marcelle, Erik

  • Recently, North Park Apartments held a Crime Prevention Meeting. Various Police, Community, and local corporation security directors were present. Jean attended as a RONA representative. North Park has seen a large crime increase recently, mainly focused on theft of electronic devices from parked cars in their underground parking areas, but also increased break-ins into units. The culprits seem to be teenagers and young adults. Police suggested that community managers keep detailed logs of the theft activity -- if there is a pattern the police will have a greatly increased chance of catching the culprits. North Park management will be continuing holding meetings to keep their residents informed of the situation. RONA residents are asked to keep an eye out for suspicious activity. Also we suggest you keep any electronics in your car out of sight and your cars locked when they are parked outside.

  • One of our fellow community activists, Jean Dresden, has concerns that a certain arborist firm is biasing it's tree removal proposals in favor of developers. She has emailed us some extensive examples from proposed developments in Districts 3 & 4 (southern area by 101). She is asking for an official letter of support from RONA to get the council to ask for a re-appraisal of the tree appraisals. Jean mentioned that we may want to take a stance opposing biased arborist reports and also give a favor to a fellow community activists. RONA Board is review Ms. Dresden's examples and email opinions to Jean by Monday 11/24.

  • Board approves paying for 2009 hosting & domain-registration fee for rona.org. Board approves paying back Marcelle for the previous 2 years of hosting and domain registration. Fee per-year for domain registration is $9.99. Fee for hosting per-year is $18.12. Total paid comes out to $84.33.

  • 199 ROP by BRE: updated plans are being emailed to Jean. They have their PD permit, but are going back into council in January because the city wants a wide EVA corridor along the backside of the property (between it and Agnews). Denisty is 79 du/ac. 5 stories tall. New public street intersects with ROP about 500 feet east of Zanker. Board would like to know what traffic-controls will be installed on this intersection and also what is happening with the ROP median. Board also wants to know about setback & landscaping plans along ROP. Jean will be asking these questions to the developer.

  • CM Chu's office asked RONA's opinion on renaming the proposed park at ROP & Guadalupe River from "Riverview Park" after Iris Chang, who still has family ties to the River Oaks area. While RONA Board is not against renaming the park, we think a better memorial to Ms. Chang would be to name a local library in her memory. Jean will respond to CM Chu's office with this opinion.

  • Inclusionary Housing report: Erik has been to two meetings so far, meetings are continuing into December, with the city council meeting December 9th. The committee is still looking over options, and is putting together a proposal to present to council. Developers (and the two councilmembers who side with developers) are still dead-set against it. Local business interests and community groups are very supportive. Erik has been instrumental in convincing the Disability Advisory Commission to support Inclusionary Housing. Erik also has brought up an interesting way inclusionary housing can work even in single-family neighborhoods in this economic crisis: in Santa Barbara, the city is buying up foreclosed homes under market value using in-lieu funds, refurbishing them, retitling them to be inclusionary for the next N years, and selling them to low income residents. Erik will continue to follow these meetings.

  • Essex/Cadence community meeting report: Mike attended, only a handful of other residents. There is a new city-planner on the project. Essex has reconfigured the buildings to be 5-stories, all one height, and square to the property lines. The previously-public entrance along ROP is now EVA-only, otherwise most of the other details are the same. They will be going before the council sometime in December for their PD permit. RONA is still concerned about all the traffic exiting onto Seely Rd.

  • Minor tweaks to the RONA-Board meeting schedule for the holidays: meeting on Dec 11th, Jan 8th, Jan 22nd, and then back to the 1st and 3rd Thursdays of the month.