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| Compare parkland to a beautiful home you can't afford By Debra Godshall--Publisher's Note Published/Last Modified on Wednesday, June 20, 2007 3:31 PM PDT For what it's worth, here's my take on the 22 acres purchased in 2004 by the previous Half Moon Bay City Council as a potential park site. I apologize in advance if it reads a little bit like a fairy tale. A head of household finds a big house with a big yard for his growing family and decides he wants to buy it. His intentions are noble and his wonderful family certainly deserves to live in it. The problem is he doesn't come close to being able to afford the house. Besides not having the money, the appraised value for the property indicates it is worth much less than the asking price. But feeling infallible, he forges ahead. He doesn't tell anybody about the appraisal. In fact, he tells his family an appraisal doesn't even exist, because he really wants this house. He seeks counsel, and his lawyer's advice is this: Yes, the house is the perfect size for your family, and it's located in a nice neighborhood, but ... The actual use of the house and yard would be limited because of endangered species - the California red-legged frog - found on the property. The family couldn't actually live in the house, but on occasion, would be allowed to walk quietly along selected trails set back from the frog's habitat. Also, the lawyer cautioned that the buyer would be required to shoulder all liability for any future claims due to toxic agricultural chemicals that might be seeping into adjacent lands. Did I already mention our buyer doesn't have much money? But he ignores his lawyer's advice and purchases the property without any input from his family, only to find himself no longer the head of household a year later. Probably should have seen that one coming. Now the family is stuck with a house it can't live in, a house it probably won't ever be able to sell to anyone else, and with no money or plan for how to pay the mortgage. And the mortgage is due. To make things worse, the ousted head of household blames the new head of household for not having a solution to this problem he created. He offers no help or solutions for paying the mortgage or overcoming the obstacles to moving the family into the home. That's it in a nutshell. If you find yourself confused, read the due diligence report that was finally released this month after three years of being withheld from the public. If folks make you feel bad for not believing in the future of the park, ask them these basic questions, which have yet to be answered: • Why was the land purchased at a price higher than the appraised value and without public input? • Why was the existence of the appraisal and the subsequent due diligence report withheld from the public? • What is the plan to raise the $3.1 million just to own the land and have it sit, unusable, as is? What's the plan to raise the $10.4 million to make it into a real park? • What's the plan to overcome the environmental restrictions that will be imposed now that red-legged frogs have been found on the property? If it is possible to develop the land after an endangered species has been found on the property, it will be a first for the Coastside, by the way. We all want and deserve a park, we just can't afford this one. It's irresponsible to move forward with grants or fund-raising without sound answers about its actual usability. • Debra Godshall is publisher of the Half Moon Bay Review. |