SeaView Residents Association (SRA) and community members worked with the city of RPV to preserve our privacy, security, & serenity.
Ladera Linda park remodel plan and execution have been controversial for the sur-rounding communities most affected by the construction park plan. It has been critical to our community that we be involved in the decision-making process of the park remodel. Lots of decisions have been made with the help of our community but one decision almost passed us by. Specifically, we almost missed out on providing feedback on the removal and lowering of the south side facing fence. This fence backs up to our back yards and provides privacy and is a noise barrier for its residents.
The city was planning on removing and lowering the south side fence about 15-20 feet over the side of the hill to provide unobstructed ocean views for the people visiting the park. Luckily the SRA board became aware of this proposed plan and got to work mobilizing the community to make sure our voice was heard.
Unfortunately, until the city heard our concerns, they were largely unaware of the impact moving the fence would have on our way of life. Our privacy, security and serenity were largely at stake here. Not to mention many other large issues, such as possible declining property values and erosion of the hill to name a few.
Luckily, we were able to postpone the city council vote for one week to come up with a compromise that the city would agree with. For our plan to work we had to get our proposal on the city council agenda. This was accomplished by our SRA board calling the city manager and emailing the city. Then we knocked on doors and sent out emails to alert the neighborhood of the city’s plan. These efforts generated a lot of emails and phone calls to the city voicing our concerns with the city’s plan.
The SRA met several times before the meeting to formulate a plan of the fence could be changed to benefit the park users and our community. Once we had our proposal, we had to present it to the city and staff.
The city staff hosts weekly site visits to explain their plans with the park and many HOA board members along with residents were able to attend these visits. We told our plan to the city staff who said they would look at our proposal and present it to the council members. With lots more phone calls and emails to the city we were able to get our fence proposal on the city agenda most importantly with the city staff recommending our changes. We are all grateful to the city staff for their time and attention to our concerns resulting in incorporating our proposed changes into their revised recommendations.
One final hurdle and the most important step was the vote by the city council agreeing to the staffs’ recommended changes.
We had our SRA President Jerry Duhovic in person at the meeting along with Rayne Sherman SRA VP and Daniel Rouimi board member on Zoom to voice our support for the city’s recommendation. After much discussion by the city council and hearing our concerns, the city agreed with the staff recommendations as a good com-promise.
Instead of the fence being lowered, the existing south side fence line will be preserved and there will be another fence added on the other side of at least a 17-foot dense vegetation barrier in between the 2 fences.
Some people were telling us that the city would not compromise and that we were wasting our time. But when the SRA board heard these naysayers, we got to work and executed on a sound plan and strategy to bring to the city and get this done. I was amazed and am grateful for all the support from our community on how we were able to mobilize and act in such a short timeframe. It was about 2 weeks from becoming aware of the situation through inception and formulation to the vote of the city council meeting.