AUNTY DEVELOPMENT EXPLAINS ALL THINGS DEVELOPMENTALLY

Well, it's been almost a year since Aunty took on her job as advice columnist to developers who have urgent questions about their lack of real relationships with surrounding communities, and I must say, Aunty is getting lonely- she's just not getting a lot of missives from developers-- missiles maybe, the odd little anonymous embroidered ornamental brickbat, but no heartfelt questions as to how to make beautiful music with the locals.  Now if Royal Gorge LLC is anything to go by, there must be a lot of developers who are absolutely tone death when it comes to singing "Kumbaya" with cute little communities, but, maybe insensitive cluelessness, and a willingness to roll over people's hopes and dreams and endangered species alike is just part of the job description for developers.

Because Aunty has such a lonely heart for letters, and to help her keep her job with the Donner Summit Clarion, she's decided to accept queries from non-developers too-- ordinary folks who have questions regarding "ALL THINGS DEVELOPMENTALLY."  Here's an enquiry from Cathy Concerned, of Cucamonga, California

Dear Aunty Development,

It seems every freeway I drive on has a new development next to it with lovely signs advertising "Legacy".  Over ski week I packed my family into the SUV, and drove them up past Tejon Ranch, which is "Preserving California's Legacy", with its huge industrial park, and a very impressive truck stop, past all sorts of new housing tracts in meadows and up on scenic ridges, to Royal Gorge Cross Country Ski Resort, where Foster and Syme say they're going to preserve Donner Summit's legacy with 1000 new timeshares and condos, and very luxurious houses.  Does the word legacy mean something different to developers, because it looks like when they're done there won't be any open space left in California? What do I tell my children?

A concerned Californian,

Cathy

Dear Cathy,

My, my, Cucamonga, California. What a lot of freeways you had to drive on to make it all the way up to Donner Summit, dear.  As to your question about legacy, well, there's two sorts.  There's communal legacy, where you protect priceless areas for future generations, and, then, as you noticed, there's "developers' legacy".  That's where developers buy up massive amounts of raw land, cover it with as many buildings as they can get town's and county supervisors to permit, and then they amass a huge legacy to leave their kids--if they don't blow it all on private jets, and buying islands in the Caribbean, that is.  As to open space? Tell your kids to look for the positive, not the negative!  That glass isn't half empty, it's half full, and always look for the doughnut, not the hole!  Why, up at Royal Gorge they've even discovered they can count the private space between houses and condos as open space, because, after all, nothing's built on it!

Developmentally yours,

Aunty

Developers, and non-developers alike. Aunty Development welcomes your questions. Send them care of  ktg@savethesummit.com