ROAD BLOCKED
In unprecedented move, county rejects 13 home plans
BY JAMES BURGER, Californian staff writer, e-mail: jburger@bakersfield.com
Kern County officials threw cold water on plans for 6,500 new homes this week, saying roads need to come first.
It was a stunning step for the traditionally pro-growth county.
And Bakersfield land developers' heads are spinning.
Thirteen landowners were told that their plans to convert farmland to neighborhoods in the Rosedale area won't be supported by Kern County.
Bakersfield's road system can't handle the traffic from their new homes, county officials said.
The move shocked developers.
"I've never seen this happen before," said veteran local civil engineer Roger McIntosh. "I've got some clients that aren't that happy right now. There's a few panicked people right now."
McIntosh, who represents four of the 13 projects, said the county's move is anti-growth.
But county planning officials said they had to take this stand.
10 comments:
That smell isn't dairy cows. that the bullsh!it from the county. They didn't stop these projects for the good of the community. They arte facing an internal revenue siezure of bankruptcy proportions. Kern has always used the fees from the next project to cover the problems of the last project. Well now the current projects are not paying and Kern is in such deep trouble they won't even talk about it.
They are now talking about cutting back on police and fire, because revenue is short, go ahead, I call your bluff.
WTF did you do with all those impact and traffic fees?
Less police more crime, the fxxkin realtwhores and mortgage scum baits caused this mess for their own selfish greeed.
How can traffic be a concern, who is gonna drive down the roads to a bunch of empty houses?
Another side effect of the credit crunch, now that the worm has turned.
The County apparently can read the handwriting on the wall, and realizes an unlimited "no questions asked" growth policy only made some semblance of sense from 2000 - 2007 (specifically, until the day the stock market acknowledged the sub-prime debacle). Interestingly, now that the market has turned people who seemed allergic to the term now are using the word "bubble".
Perhaps some now can acknowledge that alot of this growth was NOT driven by traditional fundamentals of growth (i.e. a love of the town, and wanting to live here to raise a family, etc), but simply as investment-driven buyers (or first-time buyers driven out of L.A., etc) came in, desparate to grab a piece of SOMETHING, ANYTHING, before they were priced entirely out of California. Been there, done that: I know that fear myself.
As the article shows, we still have/had quite a number of builders willing to put up more houses when the ones they just built aren't selling. I dare say Kern Co. is doing their part to protect themselves to help "soften the landing" by cutting more supply of unsold inventory (although I suspect it's a day late and a dollar short for that). Building now is mostly making ghost towns, I suspect.
Really makes me wonder what'll happen up in City In The Hills if the Northeast area doesn't hit that critical mass to support development of supporting commercial properties. I'm guessing it's time to hunker down and realize if it's not built by now, it may not be (at least for a decade or two).
I could be wrong, but what if everything was in place to build the homes and the builders needed to get out of the contract because they knew that they were going to die on the vine.
I'm sure that there was probably some boiler plate that said the county government had to go along with it.
So with the county saying no to the development, the contractors don't have to worry about their deposits.
Just check and see which people voted to turn the issue, that might have had an interest in the investment.
Maybe I should explain further. If the county changed the zoning on the land from farm to residential, The taxes would increase 10 fold. that would benifit the county whether or not anything got built.
Building permits and the like would increase the countys tax base coffers.
Realisticly, how many houses would have been built considering the present economic conditions? Surly not 6,500.
Looks to me like they did the builders a favor by saying no.
I love how the realtors and mortgage brokers "forced" clients to buy more home than they can afford. If someone tries to buy more than they can afford and overextends themselves, whatever. I know there are realtors and lenders that actually advise against their clients getting into a bad situation. I specifically know one lender that refuses loan programs to clients for this very reason. They tell them to go somewhere else if they want to be put into a bad position.
As in ANY industry, there are unethical, dishonest professionals. It's a sad reality of this world we live in.
Oh yeah, Perfect Storm, pull your head out,.. your comment makes no sense!
Never said all realtors are realtorwhores or all mortgage brokers are mortgage scum baits.
However, times are getting tough for those in the real estate trades, if you can call it that. Maybe they can just click their heels together and say there is no place like selling a home there is no place like selling a home or they can get an education and a real profession and stop bitching about how people talking are stopping them from selling houses. Freakin losers like you who defend a whole industry that is ripe with corruption make me sick.
In addition, Accredited announced that a class action lawsuit was filed against the Company and certain of its officers and directors. The lawsuit generally alleges that, between November 1, 2005 and March 12, 2007, Accredited issued materially false and misleading statements regarding the Company's business and financial results causing the Company's stock to trade at artificially inflated prices. The Company believes that the lawsuit has no merit and intends to defend the case vigorously.
Criminal inquiries will be next another example of mortage scum baits increasing our chances of long recession, which will cause more crime. Freakin great!!
This is going to make the Enron whores look like girl scouts.
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