Planning Evaluation of DEIR Report : Fails to be innovative in improving quality of life issues.
From the Email InBOX:
I would like to bring to the attention something that turns my stomach every time I see it in a report: Please read the attachment and tell me how they can say it is okay to increase the air pollution and the noise because they can’t find a way to avoid it.
I would like to bring to the attention something that turns my stomach every time I see it in a report: Please read the attachment and tell me how they can say it is okay to increase the air pollution and the noise because they can’t find a way to avoid it.
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Paw Reads the DEIR Report and recognises the same shortfall as you do but perhaps with a slightly different perspective.
One assumption is that any development or human activity will cause an increase in the use of vehicles that will increase noise, congestion and pollution. This assumption is flawed. Some communities have been successful in increasing pedestrian traffic, and bike riding and the use of LEV's and NEV's. Grand Terrace continues to resist any actions that would functionally promote the non use of Commuter Auto's. Grand Terrace put Seniors far away from the shops and stores. Persistence in the type of planning done in the past will produce increased traffic. There is no one in our city government saying, lets live with what we have and do it better. This is not their mind set.
One assumption is that leaving land undeveloped does not have a environmental impact on the environment. A dry field left to be "Natural" will cause particulate pollution during our frequent high winds. These pollutants cause serious health problems.
So our human challenge is how to make nature better and manage our environment to enhance the human experience and preserve environmental diversity of plants and animals.
The attitude that all development will have negative results with the only goal being to minimize them or just accept them as inevitable is a troubling positioning for a regulating agency to take.
Land use, development and a social organization such as a city government will always cause an environmental impact. Heck Nature is an Environmental Impact. The goal should be to make all impacts POSITIVE, and if not minimize the negative. To assume that development will cause a Negative Impact is not a position that a good planning department should take as a norm.
The County limiting the height of windmills and thus reducing the effectiveness of Wind Generator Fields, is an approach to impact development in a negative way. Would you rather have smog, oil rigs, or a windmill? Would you rather have the uranium mines, and Nuclear Power Plant in your back yard? Or would you be willing to say, if Grand Terrace doesn't generate its own power, we live without lights?
I think people should be allowed to do almost anything on their own property, including windmills and radio towers, chickens and yes a goat or two. My neighbors after all can have teenagers, barking dogs, noisy cars, Car Sound Systems that rattle your windows and teeth.
