Clearcutting sucks.
Back in April, Good Samaritan Hospital sold off a 16-acre parcel of land at the corner of Satinwood Drive and Elks Drive that was zoned residential and would've been difficult to develop for anything other than houses. They teamed up with the City of Corvallis and bought a parcel on the other side of the hospital campus in conjunction with a purchase of a neighboring farm for open space. It was a sweet deal for the Corvallis Clinic, who snagged $500,000 of the $17 million simply for signing a quit claim deal on lease interest that they held on a portion of the land.
So now, 50+ houses are going to be crammed into the usable acreage, significantly expanding one of the nicer moderate subdivisions in town. There is no word yet on what size homes or lots will actually be built, or what the selling prices will be, but it seems more and more likely that we will end up with more oversized, cheaply-built houses on tiny lots that will sell for premium cost. Fine, whatever. Go, go rampant capitalism! Never mind that a Corvallis family earning the local average salary can't afford to buy anything better than a manufactured home!
But I find it awful that the first step the developer takes is to clearcut the existing forest, leaving nothing more than a thin barrier of trees along a portion of Satinwood, without leaving any native trees within the development. Isn't this ugly?
How hard would it be to plan the development so that some of the trees could have been preserved within the development? Sure seems to make more sense than building up all the houses, then planting tiny decorative deciduous trees.
So now, 50+ houses are going to be crammed into the usable acreage, significantly expanding one of the nicer moderate subdivisions in town. There is no word yet on what size homes or lots will actually be built, or what the selling prices will be, but it seems more and more likely that we will end up with more oversized, cheaply-built houses on tiny lots that will sell for premium cost. Fine, whatever. Go, go rampant capitalism! Never mind that a Corvallis family earning the local average salary can't afford to buy anything better than a manufactured home!
But I find it awful that the first step the developer takes is to clearcut the existing forest, leaving nothing more than a thin barrier of trees along a portion of Satinwood, without leaving any native trees within the development. Isn't this ugly?
How hard would it be to plan the development so that some of the trees could have been preserved within the development? Sure seems to make more sense than building up all the houses, then planting tiny decorative deciduous trees.
posted by Corvallist at
1:40 PM
6 Comments:
Forward-looking communities can craft zoning ordinances to require preservation or replacement of trees, require set-backs from property lines, and so on. Why doesn't Corvallis do this? If Corvallis does do so, why weren't those regulations implemented here?
As far as the idea that rampant capitalism is linked to housing affordability problems, ponder this: will housing become less affordable because an additional fifty units of supply become available? Will fifty additional families in town, furnishing new homes and landscaping their hideously barren properties perhaps create more demand for labor that would open opportunities for those who can't currently afford better housing?
It's all a big trade off -- the more houses that can be built, and the uglier/cheaper/crappier they are, the more affordable housing will be. The undesired effects of rampant capitalism can be tempered by zoning requirements, but there will be a cost somewhere.
By
Anonymous, at 7:28 AM
It's a weird dynamic here, to be sure. McMansions that cost $450K here are still a bargain for anyone moving north from the Bay Area, so every time these neighborhoods are created, we have an influx of people trying to enjoy our more low-key lifestyle...retirees, people who cash out and work from home, etc. Our net jobs have decreased as our housing capacity has expanded.
But yeah, that capitalism crack was probably unnecessary. It's not that houses are being built; it's the types of houses. The newer neighborhoods here are all ugly.
By
Corvallist, at 8:00 AM
Well, as someone who is out of the loop, out of the game, will always be poor as far as US standards go, can never rise up above poverty now at my age, I can make fun of those ugly cheap houses and the destruction building them causes.
Today, people with nothing are being run from their shacks in Millersburg's Camp Boondoggle. They are being judged, too, as worthless human beings because they have nothing. People cite the trash accumulated there as proof these people are nothing more than rats. The trash accumulated at Camp Boondoggle in the forty years it's been there is not even the amount of trash the average family creates in a few months.
By
Anonymous, at 9:41 AM
My husband and I were among the first handful of people to purchase into Willamette Landing. We couldn't afford anything in Corvallis, and then found out that Pahlish was building the new development. We spoke with them, and they stressed that the entire development was going to be affordable housing for the area. Literally the first new affordable housing in Corvallis in about 20+ years. They were very proud of the affordability factor, promised us that it was going to maintain that focus. So, almost 4 years ago we paid 145k for a 3 bedroom 2 bath. Extremely good in this town. However, the affordable housing in our neighborhood was selling extremely slow compared to the new huge mcmansions at Grand Oaks and elsewhere. Eventually they sold to Legend, and Legend decided to go for the higher market. Oddly, the houses began selling like hotcakes! We moved out about a year ago. Quite frankly, I was quite bummed the neighborhood turned into McMansionville (although we did make more on our house, I still would have preferred smaller scale houses and the types of community that is created in affordable housing).
By
Anonymous, at 10:14 AM
Most developers clearcut forests/groves ahead of time, and asap, before applying to local planning departments for discretionary permits for development, such as for subdivisions. Two fold benefit for them. 1)clearcutting before the application is submitted would not be included as part of the project description, and therefore would not have to be reviewed for environmental impacts and mitigated. 2) Neighbors/residents are less inclined to show up at hearings to fight the development in hope of saving the trees, as the trees will no longer be there. Only way for a community to get around it is to adopt a strictly enforced tree removal ordinance that prohibits removal of mature trees over a certain size (with some exceptions such as hazard, etc.), and/or allows removal only as part of a development application. This would allow the impacts to be fairly reviewed, and the possible retention of some trees.
By
Anonymous, at 10:58 AM
Calvary Chapel Corvallis didn't even bother with a green-up strip between Chip Ross Park and their new church. See photos on http://friendsofchiprosspark.blogspot.com/
By
Anonymous, at 7:54 AM
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