It is remarkable, that in all of the thousands of pages, hundreds of charts and drawings, and dozens of meetings, we still don’t know what the Meadows Project really looks like. The only glimpse we have had is a multi-coloured rendering of the entrance at Sunnyside looking up at an angle towards the mountains. We see the tops of three homes peeking out from overgrown shrubs, tall grasses and mature trees. And the first thought that comes to mind is: Wow, what a fire hazard!
There are no other scale, life like renderings of the project from any perspective......walking or driving down the streets, looking north or south, east or west. No aerial shots looking down on the project. At this stage of the review, and since July 2021, we have only seen a plot plan showing 4 rows of rectangles situated on 5 streets.
The latest plot plan below shows what looks like pieces of a puzzle. This is supposed to show us what the Project looks like.
Strangely puzzling in these times of incredible technology and computer programs, that we are not seeing this project ‘up close and personal’. Why are we not taking a leisurely stroll on our computers down the street through this planned development and looking to our left and right-seeing the various home designs as they are planned, seeing how close they are to each other, how tall they are, how big the front and back setbacks are, what size the yards are, what ‘lot coverage’ really looks like, what the proposed mix of predominately two story homes looks like, what the retaining walls look like, what the landscaping looks like, how the views are affected and much more.
We all know the saying ‘A picture is worth a thousand words’ and recognize how much information is conveyed visually. It begs the question why we are not ‘seeing’ this Project .
We know that the meadow will be heavily graded in order to fit a housing project that belongs on a flat piece of land and put it on a hillside. There are no renderings of what this will look like.
We now know the Project has gone from mostly single story homes that ‘reflect the character of the surrounding neighborhood’ to a majority of two story homes with only twelve single story homes. There are no pictures of what this will look like.
We know that this Project was designed ‘to retain the small town, eclectic character that is cherished by the community’ and ‘promote compatibility with the immediately adjacent neighbors.’ It is creating this vision by installing ‘buffers’ or barriers on all four sides to physically isolate it from the community it desires to be a part of - and that is being touted as a Project benefit. All it needs is a gate at the entrance to complete the picture.
We now know that the Project will require additional water usage from construction and the addition of over 400 small trees that will require regular water during the first years of their growth. There has been no update on projected water usage.
As the vagueness and lack of detail in the developer’s ‘Specific Plan’ is questioned during public meetings and comments, it continues to raise questions about what we are not being told and what they are hiding that remains to be uncovered.
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