Tehachapi News

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There are two compelling reasons to question the current policies of the city planning staff and planning commission.  First is their recommendation to place an 81 unit  low-income family apartment complex across the street from highly traveled railroad tracks at the corner of H and Mill Streets.

Approximately 150-200 children will occupy this crowded project. Kids being kids, they will likely play on the narrow dirt strip adjacent to the tracks and on the tracks themselves. Clearly, this could be a tragedy waiting to happen. In addition, this danger may be magnified by the fact about 24 trains pass this site daily. This noisy location is also too distant from schools and clean, affordable markets.

Even Tehachapi's city attorney during a recent council meeting said, referring to those making the recommendation, "They failed to do their homework."  This was a primary reason the city council refused to approve the recommendation.

The second reason involves housing. Overbuilding leads to excessive vacancies in both homes and apartments.

Tehachapi vacancies are now both high and rising. They are over 15 percent for apartments alone, and home foreclosures may initiate an even greater problem. High vacancies have led to urban decay in cities both big and small. Talk to the residents of Palmdale and Lancaster, to name just two.

The reasons are understandable. A boom and bust cycle can trigger urban decay. High vacancies can lead to property expenses exceeding income. Then when property owners facing foreclosures become sufficiently desperate they will rent to just about anyone. Many will solicit unemployed, Section 8 welfare families from county agencies. The government will pay prevailing rents directly to the owners.

What follows has been well documented: increases in gangs, graffiti, and crime, along with declining schools and property values.

Tehachapi now more than ever, needs leaders who are visionary, vocal, and wanting to keep our community beautiful, clean and safe.

– Stanley A. Beckham