|
|
 |
California
Demise of Older Malls Provides Boost for Smart Growth Efforts
Addicted to ''the immediate gratification of retail sales taxes,'' cities have long sought malls and big boxes for prime locations and pushed homeowners with their state-bound property taxes ever farther out, but once fiscal, social and environmental costs of sprawl became hard to sustain and many older malls deteriorated, officials and developers alike discovered smart growth, observes San Diego-Riverside region North County Times columnist Michael D. Pattison, excited by Carlsbad's plan to turn the Westfield Plaza Camino Real shopping center into a retail-residential complex, with 400 apartments and courtyard homes.
Noting that downtown San Diego was rebuilt and re-energized around its Petco Park, gaining ''a new sense of community in which to live, work, shop and recreate,'' the columnist points out that northern San Diego County ''is full of the same smart-growth opportunities.''
Worked out by Carlsbad officials and Westfield Plaza owners over the past two years, the redevelopment plan makes the best of the mall's proximity to two freeways, the new train line, other businesses and residential neighborhoods. The projected owner- and rental-housing promises to increase the land value and revitalize the area economically, while giving local teachers, firefighters, nurses, police and other employees ''the chance to live close to work instead of commuting from Riverside County,'' dozens of miles north.
And that would ease road congestion -- always the main argument for local housing project opponents, the columnist writes, posing these questions: ''So will they go for it? Will they support Westfield and its bold plans? Will they encourage the Carlsbad City Council to vote in favor? Will they live with their own rhetoric, or will it be the usual game plan of protests, referendums and litigation?'' -- North County Times
3/20/2006
Click here to view the source article or
here to view the source publication.
|
|
E-mail
to a Friend
View
Printer-friendly page 
