NO on L: The campaign against Pacifica’s Measure L

With November 7th drawing near, now's the time to summarize why Measure L is bad for Pacifica.

1. Measure L exists only to allow 355 housing units in the Quarry. It's not a straw poll or a survey. It's a permanent change to allow 355 housing units in a C-3 commercial zone.
2. More houses mean more cars. Measure L's high-density housing "vision" would merge hundreds more commuters directly in between the two worst-rated intersections on Highway 1 in Pacifica. Miami high-rise developer R. Donahue Peebles has claimed he'll build multi-million-dollar, 4,500-square-foot houses there. The residents of those "Tract Villas" will almost certainly own and drive multiple cars, and commute to big-city jobs to pay their mortgages.
3. Peebles has repeatedly threatened us with a mushroom cloud of "big-box" retail if we don't give him his 355 housing units. But that "choice" ignores the vast middle ground between those extremes. Peebles deliberately chose an "all-or-nothing" approach, instead of negotiating a development agreement first.
4. Measure L asks Pacificans to forfeit our right to vote on the specifics. Why authorize 355 housing units and a dramatic change to the character of Pacifica, without assuring anything in exchange? Measure L puts the cart before the horse. It would give away those lucrative houses before negotiation even begins. That's not a negotiation, it's a fold.
5. Attempting to get Pacificans to fold is big money politics, straight from Miami and D.C. The "yes on L" campaign has spent $1,310,384 so far to try to push Measure L past Pacifica voters. It's an extravagant sum for an election in a quiet coastal town.
6. Peebles has claimed that Measure L will solve all our problems and fulfill nearly every wish. We've been told that it'll give us a sports complex, a library, a movie theater, a new City Hall, an aquatic center, affordable housing, a performing arts center, loans to the City, and more. Those would have to be built, maintained, and staffed with taxpayer's money, and it's unclear where exactly that's going to come from. Without a development agreement, the promises are meaningless anyway.
7. Finally, there is no "town center" in Measure L. The words don't even appear in the ballot language. There's no specific number of houses other than 355. There's no specific amount of commercial. There's no specific amount of space for any public buildings, parks, or amenities. It's just not there.

Measure L is an attempted end-run around the public process. It has been sold through:

South Florida developer Roy Donahue Peebles has said on several public occasions and in print that his "vision" for "the future of Pacifica" is Pebble Beach.

Pebble Beach has no City Council, no representatives, and no democracy. Pebble Beach is a private corporation. It has no public government at all; it is a wholly-owned private fiefdom. Pebble Beach has no citizens, only homeowner's association members and employees.

I was disappointed by the tone of some of last weeks' Letters supporting up to 355 houses in the Quarry.

This isn't a battle of Pacificans vs. Pacificans. The enemy is the unacceptably vague ballot measure and the 355 houses and traffic nightmare it would create.

I left the May 18th "Charrette" cautiously optimistic about Mr. Peebles and his designs for the Quarry. It sounded too good to be true, so I began doing some "due diligence" on Mr. Peebles, his architect, "Charrettes", and some of the environmental, regulatory, and economic issues with the Quarry property. I collected web links and notes. I started asking around. Peebles seemed to be patient; I expected this would take years to come to a ballot.