The Preserve is dead -- blogging the Lancaster City Council meeting

Comparing apples to bowling balls

Jerry Sylo is baiting-and-switching, or comparing apples to bowling balls, to compare estate lots in The Preserve’s proposal to the five-acre A-O lots if Steve Topletz can’t get rezoning for the land. Smooth, yes, with that claim, but a 14,000-square foot lot is not a five-acre lot.

Now, that’s not to say five-acre lots would sell. But it is to say that Sylo’s comparisons aren’t even in the same solar system.

But, this is all academic, isn’t it? Thanks to Councilman Dick Headen’s impatience, or whatever, The Preserve has been pickled, sliced and diced, turned into compote and then put out for compost, by a 5-2 count.

That said, Sylo is right that city code has little in the way of design controls – if we’re talking straight zoning. But, again, let’s compare The Preserve to Mills Branch.

Because Mills Branch was also a PD and not straight zoning, it must be noted that it does have design standards, and that, IMO, these standards are superior to what Sylo is offering for The Preserve. Not to say otherwise, about Sylo’s comparing a PD to straight zoning, would be not to mention comparing oranges to bocce balls.

And, The Preserve’s acreage is larger than all three of the original Mills Branch developments combined.

Sylo talks about planting 2,300 new trees. Even throwing out all the cedars that are not on the city’s tree preservation list, and throwing out the scraggly volunteer starters, there’s still hundreds of trees in 800 acres that ARE protected.

So, this offer isn’t much beyond what is required by city ordinance.

As for Jerry Forsee, if he wants to money-drop (instead of name-drop) that his company works on $2-10 million properties, fine. But, would you really build houses worth that much surrounded by $150,000-225,000 houses? I think not. Instead of my previous Lancaster Today comment on gated communities, that putting a gate around a pigsty doesn’t change the pigsty, this would be just the opposite. You’d be gating out a pigsty while still making people living in The New Jerusalem gated community still drive through the pigsty every day.

I hadn’t mentioned the lack of age-restrictions in the “seniors” apartments, though I’ve known about it. Would be nice to have that put in place.

Hello, Steve Topletz. I hope you’re reading, listening, and if not “quaking,” taking serious heed.

And, if “The Preserve” is too fancy a name, we could always call it “Hank Haney Estates,” should you bring this back for another shot.

For more in-depth coverage from a straight news angle, see the afternoon of Dec. 14 or later.