Over the prior week, Save Lafayette volunteers have been at numerous events throughout the community. The message we heard was very clear. Lafayette was not laid out to accommodate the level of growth it has experienced in recent years. The schools, intersections and shopping areas have not absorbed the growth and a lot of urban concerns are overtaking the quality of life in Lafayette.
The Homes at Deer Hill project was established by a process out of the view Lafayette’s citizenry and has been pressed forward despite their concerns. The intersection at Deer Hill Road and Pleasant Hill Road is among one of the busiest ones in Lafayette, the commute and Acalanes High School ingress/egress period traffic congestion severely impacts all of the families with students at Acalanes and all of the neighborhoods of North/East Lafayette. Springhill School is turning away new enrollees because it is full. The Lafayette BART parking lot is full by 7:40am most mornings; the site is not a distance most people will walk to BART, so those residents would be driving. Lafayette citizens have affirmed that The Homes at Deer Hill project will worsen the traffic, school, parking and other concerns that the recent growth has brought to Lafayette.
Save Lafayette’s petition signature effort will bring the resolution that the City Council adopted to a referendum. The effort has terrific momentum driven by they concerns previously enumerated. However, the community of Lafayette voters must come out in force to sign the petitions; the time to be heard is now. Over the coming week, we have numerous events scheduled for the citizens of Lafayette to be heard. We hope you’ll join us!
Please stop building more homes and offices. Our small town of Lafayette can not continue to build every inch of open space. The traffic and parking is terrible now. Our schools will not be able to handle the additional needs of school age children. Please preserve the beauty of Lafayette.
To Whom It May Concern,
The traffic in Lafayette has increased exponentially since I moved here 8 years ago. It is sad and unfortunate that the city finds it necessary to build additional homes to the degree that we are bursting at the seems from a traffic perspective and also the number of students impacted at the local public schools. There is no question that growth can be a positive thing. However, Lafayette is not equipped to handle the traffic issues that have already ensued on both Pleasant Hill/Taylor and Reliez Valley Road during morning and afternoon hours. The city planning committee certainly should have taken this into account prior to the agreeing to the build out at Deer Hill. Lafayette is no longer the quaint little town that we moved to from Chicago. Big city congestion here we come.
The area where the proposed housing is already over taxed with traffic. We come in from Pleasant Hill to doctors in Lafayette. If it is an early morning appointment we figure to leave at least an hour early because of the traffic on two lane of Pleasant Hill road. You have schools that add traffic and to add a complex of homes right of the apex of the traffic is very poor planning. I realize the owners of the property want to make a profit and the city is looking for further income. Bad idea at both ends
Can anyone think of a worse idea than to put 44 homes on the intersection of pleasant hill road and Deer Hill? That intersection, both in the morning and the early evening, are completely congested, worse so in the morning with commuters for both work, Acalanes and Springhill. Anyone who thinks this is a good idea need to get their heads examined.
There is no worse idea! It’s that simple!
This is a disastrous idea. Who ever signed off on this at the Planning commission? The City Planner is obviously overlooking our already horrible and growing traffic, not considering water supply and the environmental impacts and the fact that all of the elementary, middle school and high schools are over impacted to the point of purchasing portables to house more students taking up room from needed play areas and fields for local community sports teams. Common sense needs to take priority, not profits. It is so sad that the City of Lafayette has no problem changing what is so treasured and quaint about our town from the TAX PAYERS and leading us down the path to look like the next Walnut Creek.
I am in agreement with those who think this is disastrous idea. I have lived in Lamorinda my whole life and find the decisions of the city or its commissions to be lacking effective traffic calming measures. This includes impotence in stopping or holding accountable, Moraga traffic through Lafayette in addition to these “new” project builds the past
few years and those soon to be as this Deer Hill Project and other! Please stop! The impact has far reached a level of intolerance!
Please stop the Deer Hill Home Project. It is already a very busy intersection in lafayette and having more homes built will make congestion worse. We moved to Lafayette because it was not over developed like many cities are. Keep Lafayette beautiful and do not overdevelop!
I really don’t like the rapid growth either. for all the reasons cited. However, where can I find information about the original zoning on that Deer Hill lot? Has City Council given additional zoning rights to that lot, in addition to the rights the owners had when they purchased it? What was the owner legally entitled to build on that lot when he/she purchased it? When the city council voted on LR-5 zoning for the project, was that less than the owner originally was entitled to? Why did the owner threaten to sue? If this background is answered somewhere, please direct me to that link, I don’t see it here.
This is a great neighborhood! The fact that we have 2 very good schools at this street is a big benefit to all of us. The traffic, however, is already beyond belief (during rush hours)… We do not need more congestion and headache or pollution to this beautiful area. It is simply not the place to put a new residential complex, so that this is even up for discussion, is hard to comprehend and this should simply never be approved! We need to keep this neighborhood livable and safe, more trafficwill not be able to provide that!
I can’t think of a worse place to build a bunch of homes in Lafayette. Can pleasant hill road really accommodate more traffic and chaos? I don’t think so!
Aside from the macro affects from this project, i.e., schools, traffic congestion and parking, I’m concerned
about the fact that there is a proposed park (2.9 acre designated for dogs) directly across from a high school. One can only imagine what the students might be able to do before/after school and before Friday night
football games and other events held in the evenings.
How many high schools in the entire Bay Area have a park across the street from the campus?
Further complicating traffic through Lafayette, there’ also the 300 plus housing units in Moraga that are either currently under construction or in the proposal stages…YIKES!!
This is the stupidest plan to ever come from “The city of bad ideas”. I’m so happy that some people finally rose from the dead, to oppose the diabolical, lying weasel puppets, that have been running this corrupt City, for over 40 years. This terrible plan, is for the benefit of two special interest groups @ the expense of everyone else. My mailbox, is steps from the city owned sugar store, operated exclusively by & for Little League. The nastiest group of people, I have ever met. Three months after the soccer, special interest group, LMYA, demanded a
lighted field, this stupid plan showed up.