December 7, 2004

"...Article 2- Urban Standards

    Chapter 2.18.010-  Open Space

 

    A. PURPOSE

    The Open Space district zone is intended to protect its

    important natural resources by limiting building within the

    mountains, foothills, and river channels. The primary allowable

    land uses are: public recreation; limited residential develop-

    ment on legal lots of record with adequate access, buildable

    areas, and infrastructure; and limited agricultural uses.

 

    Continuing surface mining operations may also be allowed,

    recognizing the community's strong interest in improving and

    accelerating reclamation and reducing the environmental

    impacts of existing vested mining, with consideration of

    tradeoffs affecting vested mining operations and future

    operations adjacent and contiguous to vested operations.

    Future operations adjacent and contiguous to vested

    operations may be considered through a formal Develop-

    ment Agreement based on public participation and

    environmental review. For the purposes of this Develop-

    ment Code, vested rights shall mean that valid Use Permits

    have been issued by the City.

 

    B. LOCATION, EXISTING CONDITIONS AND DESIRED

        FUTURE

        The San Gabriel Mountains are the northern backdrop to

        Azusa. They are a landmark, provide a memorable visual

        presence of nature for the city, and are a key recreational

        resource for Azusa and the San Gabriel Valley. They provide

        the only obvious boundary to the City and provide the topo-

        graphy that qualifies Azusa as a Southern California foothill

        community. It is not without reason that Azusa is known as

        the ' Canyon City. '  Historically, these mountains have been

        a resource for cities in their watershed, feeding the entire

        region with water along the San Gabriel River and providing

        sand and gravel for surface mining.

 

        The San Gabriel River is a unique natural and historical

        resource in the City of Azusa and Los Angeles County. It

        is the current landscape buffer that defines the formal

        northern edge of the City before it ascends the San Gabriel

        Mountains. The City's founders recognized that the proximity

        of the San Gabriel River and its canyon was critical to the

        formation of the City.

 

        Although the river and surrounding lands used to be open,

        vegetated and completely accessible to the public, it has

        over time been fenced off, filled with flood control facilities

        and walled in by mining operations, residential and industrial

        uses. Rather than being the very public living room of the

        City, it has become its residual back alley.

 

        This regional amenity can potentially become, once again,

        the jewel of the City and County. It remains unpaved and

        continues to have the potential for supporting lush riparian

        vegetation and a wide variety of birds and other wildlife. It

        also has the potential of becoming the City's primary public

        open space and regional park featuring pedestrian and

        bicycle paths and educational gathering areas..."

 

                    -Excerpts from Draft 5.5, Volume 3, of the

                     General Plan and Development Code of

                     The City of Azusa, California, in regards to

                     the soon to be designated "Open Space"

                     area where the San Gabriel Valley Gun

                     Club is located, 23 June 2004 Revision.

 

To All,

     As so goes one of the oldest gun clubs in SoCal, perhaps the sand and gravel boys can peek at their ultimate future. Sort of makes one wonder where all the concrete for Los Angeles' downtown construction is going to come from, being that sand, gravel, and concrete are so light to transport across hill and dale:

 

Hunting The Perfect Beast Update:

     Here is a recipe for disaster where gunowners and hunters are involved-

 

     Mix 1 part of a revenue-deficient City Council,

 

     Add $ 1 million in developer's fees to grease the skids for

       hillside development in Northern Azusa,

 

     Fold in about 330 yuppie NIMBY families, who knew before

       they signed on the dotted line that they were moving in next

       to both one of the largest law enforcement firearms training

       ranges in Southern California, as well as one of the largest

       sources for sand, gravel, and concrete capable of keeping

       developers in cheap mix for generations,

 

     Then add a pinch of Sierra Club activists, who just happen to

     have a dream of converting the entire length of the San Gabriel

     River back to it's Class 4 Rapids days BFR (Before Flood

     Remediation),

 

     Stir until oozy, then bake for only half the time it normally

     takes for normally diametrically opposed interests to cut a

     short term deal that, oddly enough, looks like the Land

     Development Version of Musical Chairs. Then, Voila!  Another

     gun range faces closure due to the "urbanization/gentrification"

     movement.

                        ____________________________

 

     Zoning and Planning changes, one would think, would seem almost as far from a gun issue as one could imagine.

 

     But these, despite all the efforts of range protection across the Fruited Plain, can still lead to lack of access for the whole community of gun owners and gun professionals. As such, it seems to merit discussion.

 

     In the case of the newly designated Open Space in Northern Azusa, one would think that the existence of the San Gabriel Valley Gun Club would conform to the recreational use desig- nation noted above.

 

     It surely could not impact the watershed any worse than the adjacent sand/gravel operations (Or, for that matter, the run-off from 330 lawns and gardens that get semi-annual doses of the civilian version of Agent Orange, in the eternal war on crab grass.).

 

     And clearly the noise generated by the range has the desirable effect of preventing any additional homes from moving in, thus preserving habitat for such PC critters as the California Newt,  the mountain lion, and that most infamous denizen of all, homo birkenstockensis.

 

     Yet despite promises pledged of universal brotherhood between preservationists and hunters/sportsmen, in the San Gabriel Valley Gun Club case one witnesses the true nature of birkenstockensis. With bifurcated lingual appendages, the Sierra Club would join the effort to do away with one of the few places that hunters and sportsmen could go to make sure that can hit what they aim at.

 

      And by this they figure on having their cake and eating it as well. After all, other "negative uses" scheduled for the old conditional use permit chopping block are those mining activities so prominently hailed as intrinsic to the area. If the noise of skeet shooting jars, the continuous rumble of conveyors full of sand will grate. If a concern over lead runoff into the river is a fear (yet to be proven, mon freres,) then the affect of dust in violation of particulate standards is just as likely to raise ire sometime into the future. It is by such means that Carl Pope's Rascals mean to enact an agenda that, intended or not, purges the "hook and bullet" crowd from the landscape in it's march to eradicate commercial activity from an ever-increasing sphere of terrain.

 

     As such, it would seem that ConRac and the rest of the gravel industry down-stream might have an interest in not being the last commercial use left standing along the San Gabriel River, once the gun club, agriculture, and the distillation of a Prop 65 known teratogen (Miller Brewing is "kitty-corner" downstream from the gun club) operations are "dispensed with". Given the propensity of the air around Miller Brewing to smell like corn flakes and yeast, and the latest and greatest regs from the Boys and Girls at the AQMD, there might even be a "horse race" as to which commercial activity might next face homeowner scrutiny. (It sort of depends upon which way the wind blows, if you get the drift.).

 

     It will thus take the making of common cause with the other potential victims, er.......commercial activities situated along the San Gabriel River. Interested parties could possibly direct themselves towards determining what environmental groups are getting "rewarded" by land set-asides from the developers of Mountain Cove, in any effort to derive full public disclosure over these recent shenanigans (Is this not how the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy got started?). Perhaps the public's recreational shooting needs are not served by forcing hunters, sportsmen, and competitive shooters to drive towards Outer Mongolia before they can safely (and reliably) find a place to shoot. At least from a regional public safety standpoint, where police range space is a diminishing asset, the Azusa City Council should perhaps reconsider their recent vote to "term out" the San Gabriel Valley Gun Club.

 

Story basis may be found at:

http://www.ci.azusa.ca.us/com_development/
PDFs/04-06-23%20development%20code.pdf

 

http://www.ci.azusa.ca.us/Administration/sgvt1024mtcove.asp

 

http://angeles.sierraclub.org/environmental/Resolutions.asp