Tehachapi News

All > News
Charrette presentation pleases council and participants
Topics:
Posted by editor Tue Nov 30, 1999 00:00:00 PST
Viewed 770 times
0 responses 2 comments Tehachapi’s City Council and Planning Commission came together on June 11 for a special town hall meeting and presentation of the final Charrette Report, or the Interim Community Design Program (ICDP).

“This is the community’s plan and the council’s plan. This is a guide book for how the community grows and how it will look in the future,” said City Manager Jason Caudle, in introduction.

The author of the final report, David Sargent, gave a 90-minute Powerpoint presentation illustrating the Charrette’s outcomes and recommendations. Sargent artfully foreshadowed the future development of Tehachapi with illustrated streetscapes, alternative housing and thematic architectural guidelines, as well as traffic circulation suggestions aimed at maintaining and enhancing the town’s unique character.

“What most resonated with us, throughout the entire Charrette Studio process, is that most people perceive Tehachapi as a small mountain town,” Sargent said.
Sargent stated that a primary mechanism for maintaining the town’s rural character is to concentrate on creating a traffic circulation system that ties neighborhoods together.

Sargent illustrated how recent development has walled-in and isolated neighborhoods from the town’s civic, business and shopping areas, effectively dumping that residential traffic out onto a only few main connectors.

“You end up with an environment dominated by cars,” he said, adding, “That doesn’t look to us like a small mountain town.”

Sargent said that Charrette participants expressed a unified desire to enhance the entrance to the town from Highway 58 so that a visitor’s first impression of Tehachapi isn’t solely based on the industrial appearance of highway frontage facilities such as the dump and wastewater treatment plant.

Supporting this concept, Sargent offered renderings of crossings and extensions to both Curry and Green Streets continuing through to the north side of the railroad tracks.

“I’m thinking of how Red Apple Road took a lot of pressure off local traffic and opened things up,” responded Mayor Ed Grimes. “I’m just glad we caught this in the nick of time, before we’d have to go through somebody’s house [to be able to create those throughways].”

Mayor Pro-Tem Deborah Hand expressed her approval of the ICDP’s pedestrian friendly approach, placing greens, parks and common areas within walking distance of each neighborhood and linking them together with more through, residential streets.

“It’s a lot better to have our children play in city parks than in a cul de sac,” she said.
Hand also applauded the variety of multi-family housing options presented, each containing design elements that create the appearance of slightly larger single family homes, tucked within more architecturally diverse neighborhoods.

“They didn’t have what I wanted when I bought my home here. I wanted a condo with a pool and spa,” she said, adding that duplexes, triplexes and condos offer more affordable options for young families.

However, Councilman Stan Beckham was not convinced that multi-family homes would draw the interest of builders and developers.

“It’s just not economically feasible for developers. They don’t make any money on duplexes or condos. Development is driven by money,” Beckham said. 

Instead, Beckham advocated for more planned communities, senior housing and the use of locally-based alternative energy sources such wind and solar power.

As a full spectrum of community needs was addressed, from seniors to youth, Councilwoman Hand seized the opportunity to call upon the school district to step forward and cooperate with the city in mapping out demographics for the placement of new schools.

“We need to know where the school district owns property,” she said, with frustration. “We don’t know.”

Hand also addressed a recent proposal to sell Wells School to the city.

“When you ask, most people say that the best use of Wells is a school, but we know they need more land than that. We need to work together on this,” Hand said, issuing an open invitation to the school district to engage the city in a joint planning effort.

Previous efforts to work with the county in a joint General Plan Update have met with a “dead end,” according to Councilman Phil Smith. Smith expressed the need to actively pursue a partnership with the county that would allow the city to participate in the eventual development of it’s urban boundaries.

“It sounds like we’re going to have to engage with the county,” said Smith, adding “If it all goes to heck with the county then we’re not really fixing anything.”

Sargent’s report concludes that to achieve the ICDP’s objectives, the city’s General Plan should be comprehensively updated, including a restructuring of the current land use elements and zoning codes, subdivision ordinances and public improvement standards.

Caudle said that completion of the General Plan Update could take as long as a year to complete.

Tehachapi’s Community Development Director David James was quick to add that the council doesn’t have to wait for the General Plan Update to lift the current residential development moratorium.

Caudle also indicated that some developers might want to “buck the system” and would not be bound by law to conform with the ICDP, if the moratorium were lifted before the General Plan Update is legally completed. “You are an autonomous planning agency,” Caudle added, stating that the council is “not powerless to direct developers.”

Planning Commissioner Kim Nixon, expressed her support of the city’s move to enact the moratorium last fall.

“I’m so pleased the council took action to stop what was going on with development.”

For more information:
The Interim Community Design Program, or the Tehachapi Charrette Report, are available for download at: ftp.hdrtownplanning.com
login: tehachap
password: public
The files are large and will take a while to download.
The City of Tehachapi will print out the report at City Hall for those unable to download the lengthy documents.

Send to a Friend

Report a Violation

Comment From: jer72

Did I read that right? Do they believe that a railroad crossing at Curry would help traffic? How would it do that when you have a crossing at Green just a few short yards away. Wouldn't it make much more sense to place new crossing at Mill? On another note, in the past (20 or so years ago) they have talked about a crossing at Mill and found the cost was way to much and that the railroad didn't want to maintain another crossing. So what is going to happen here? I will say a Mill crossing is something I would support, but not a Curry one. Comment From: ShaneThePain

I also support a Mill Street crossing over a Curry Street one. There is freeway access at Mill.