Viewpoint Article - The Tribune 08/09/04

By Dave Romero

Key Dalidio Property Facts Often Ignored

1. The property is surrounded by the City, but it is not within the City.

2. The only way for the City to have any real control over the land is if it is annexed into the City.

3. Projects in the City are reviewed by staff, city advisory bodies and the City Council to assure that community standards are met and other benefits are achieved.

4. The property cannot be annexed without the property owners' consent.

5. The property owner, the Dalidio family, will not agree to annex into the City if the City will not allow a level of property use that they feel is fair.

6. The Dalidio's have a right to feel strongly about their property and its legacy. The farm has been in the family for over three-quarters of a century.

7. If the City really wants to annex the property and have some control over its long-term use, a mutually satisfactory agreement with the Dalidio's is required.

8. Originally, the Dalidio's and many citizens wanted to see most, if not all, of the property develop. Many others have wanted the City to protect all of the property in open space.

9. The City cannot protect anything unless the property is in the City limits, and we certainly do not have the millions that it would take to buy the whole farm (and while there has been a lot of talk about raising private funds, to my knowledge no funds were raised by the so-called "Friends of the Farm").

10. In the early 90's, after great community debate over "total development or no development", the Dalidio's offered a compromise: if the City would agree to allow about one-half of the property to develop, they would sell the remaining acreage for open space.

11. In 1991, the City Council unanimously embraced this compromise (except with free open space protection), and in 1994, it became official General Plan policy.

12. For many reasons, including reluctance on the part of former city councils to stand by our policy, a project has not been approved by the City.

13. After the Council denied a project in February 2001, the property owner finally gave up and took a substantially bigger development proposal to the County, where their property remains located.

14. If a project were approved in the County (and a Board majority has said that they would support a project "to be fair to the property owner"), the City would have zero control over the project and we would lose open space, a groundwater strategy, and all sales tax, including a percentage of sales now made in the City that will transfer to the new County development.

15. We would get one thing: all other project impacts, like visual appearance and traffic, without the benefit of City review, standards and mitigation requirements.

16. Even if a development in the County stalls or fails (and some think it will), a different City Council may someday approve a larger and less beneficial project than the one before us today.

17. When the Dalidio's took their project to the County, the City Council urged the Board to return the project to the City. In 2002, the Board agreed to do so, but only after we promised that we would work with the Dalidio's and their development partner Bill Bird in good faith.

18. Since that time, the Dalidio's and Mr. Bird have been spending a lot of money on the new studies we have required, on the very high design standards we demand, and on negotiating project concepts and "deal points", concepts now more favorable to the City than ever before.

19. Among the concepts endorsed by the Council is an open space plan that will protect forever 55 acres of the Dalidio Farm and another 20 acres offsite in the Buckley Road area, where "sprawl" is a real long term threat (the Dalidio property cannot "sprawl" because it is already surrounded on all sides by urban activity). Sixty-four acres of the farm will be developed in retail, hotel, housing, and business park uses, with 12 acres for roads and right-of-way.

20. While there are "losses" that will occur with developing some of the property (e.g. an altered view shed, loss of agriculture), there are many things to be gained, including an interchange and millions in sales and hotel taxes. These taxes are general fund revenues which are crucial to core City services, like police and fire, and to our citywide open space program, which has used general funds to entice over $6.5 million in grants since 1996 to protect thousands of acres in our greenbelt.

In closing, while a "just say no" approach will cause more delay and may keep the property from developing in the short term, it is the long term, 40, 50, 100 years from now, that we, citizens and elected officials alike, should be concerned with most of all. After the City Council and community weigh all of the facts involved, including the practical ones that I have outlined in this letter, I am hopeful that we can support the compromise proposal. I truly believe it is the best thing for SLO Town for the long term.