Letter to the Editor: Council Disappoints with Decision to Move Forward

The members of the Greater San Antonio Community Association were very disappointed that at Tuesday afternoon's study session, the council was unable or unwilling to come up with an intermediary area-wide planning option—a compromise between waiting for the completion of the Precise Plan and forging ahead and hoping for the best.

We included Merlone Geier in our request for a delay because it made the most sense, even though we knew that it was a long-shot. However, we really thought the argument for an overall plan before approving all the individual pieces would be compelling enough to lead to a halt for the other gatekeeper requests or lead to the Precise Plan consultants conducting at least a preliminary analysis before proceeding. Instead, the council will be approving developments for much of the change area currently under development pressure and will have a Precise Plan all ready for the improbable day when Walmart leaves!

On the positive side, the over 600 petition signatures, plus the good meeting turnout, showed that many local residents were beginning to be informed of the situation. The Mountain View Patch live blog and the local news TV coverage of the evening provided further exposure. However, the large number of speakers really cut down on important discussion time among the council members, possibly contributing to the lack of constructive alternatives coming from the council.

Among many GSACA members there is the sense, though, that there were clearly council members that had no intention of slowing down any development for any amount of time for any reason. We really feel the majority of the council did not step up for the residents and for the ultimate success of the whole redevelopment area.

Although the avenue of waiting for the Precise Plan process to drive decisions seems to be closed, the GSACA hopes to influence the larger community discussion around San Antonio issues by communicating its priorities in relation to each development as they come before council—starting with Merlone Geier's Phase II proposal.

Our focus with this project will be on traffic mitigation, support of local small businesses, and concern over its general massiveness and ultra high density land use—with a hotel, multiple theaters, offices, retail, and parking garage, and apparently somehow also some treatment of the historical Shockley site, all on this four acre corner, where the traffic regularly backs up on San Antonio Road causing a hazardous situation.

In particular, we feel the movie theaters (as popular as they seemed to be with the speakers who didn't want to slow down the development for adequate planning) with its seven level parking garage on the corner of California and Pacchetti and with its lack of a plaza in which people can mingle or wait for friends, needs to be improved to lessen the impact on the immediate residential neighborhood.

We're ready to continue to engage with the council to get to the hopefully mutual goal of a project that meets the needs of the local residents as well as the regional residents by anticipating problems and solving them before approving the proposal, as we can't take cars off the road or bring back beloved local businesses once the damage has been done.

Submitted by:

Nancy Morimoto
Chairperson, Planning Committee
Greater San Antonio Community Association

More on Mountain View Patch:

• Council Postpones Decision on San Antonio Shopping Center Redevelopment Project
• Vote on San Antonio Shopping Center Development Today
• A New $180M Facelift for the Old San Antonio Center
• Groundbreaking Kicks Off Development of The Village at San Antonio Center
• 5 Retailers Lease in The Village at San Antonio Center
• New Safeway at San Antonio Shopping Center Hiring

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