Attendees of the May 28 Crescenta Valley Community Assn. meeting learned of Art Simonian’s plan for three single-family, two-story homes facing Sycamore Avenue and a 20-unit, three-story condominium building on the Honolulu Avenue side of the property formerly occupied by the Mix night club. He is gathering community input early in the process and is working with Montrose-Verdugo City-Sparr Heights Neighborhood Assn. President Grant Michals on a meeting for the public. We also discussed the proposal for a variance request for a new home on a substandard size lot on Canyonside Road and Manzanita Street, in the unincorporated portion of La Crescenta. If you want to follow up on this issue, attend the CVTC Land Use committee meeting on Thursday, June 11 starting at 6:30 p.m. in the Community Room of the La Crescenta Library, 2809 Foothill Blvd.

The California High-Speed Rail Authority (CHSRA) is currently conducting a series of meetings to gather community input on the Palmdale to Burbank segment. By the time this is published there will be only one meeting left. It will be Saturday, June 6, from 9:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. at High Desert School, 3620 Antelope Woods Road in Acton. You will be able to submit a comment card. You can also mail your comments to CHSRA Palmdale to Burbank Project Section, 700 N. Alameda St., Room 3532, Los Angeles, CA 90012 or via email to palmdale_burbank@hsr.ca.gov.

There are two basic route choices currently being looked at: the originally proposed State Route 14 Corridor and the more recently introduced Eastern Corridor. There are three suggested routes through the Angeles National Forest: E1 through Lopez and Kagel Canyons, E2 through Shadow Hills and near Hansen Dam, and E3 through Sunland. All four routes would be mostly underground with portions at surface level and elevated as the terrain dictates.

All of the proposed routes go through the area proposed to be added to the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area in Alternatives C and D of the Rim of the Valley Corridor Study.

The CHSRA has eminent domain authority and property owners along the routes being studied have been asked to allow access for soil samples.

The California High-Speed Rail Authority website (www.hsr.ca.gov) has details of the possible routes and information on the entire project. The Draft Environmental Impact Report for the P-B section is expected in summer 2016.

Stakeholders along the originally proposed route expressed opposition as details emerged such as in order to allow for the anticipated high speed, the turns must be wider than the freeway and MetroLink tracks and much of the route needs to be underground. This led to the addition of the Eastern corridor options and sub-options. Opponents to those options have in turn led to other suggestions such as removing the Burbank station and having the segment established from Palmdale to Union Station instead.

One such group is Save Angeles Forest for Everyone (S.A.F.E.), which is particularly opposed to route E2. Its website is http://www.dontrailroad.us/. There are also groups opposed to the HSR in general.

Please consider this issue and let the CHSRA know your thoughts about the project.

My initial thoughts include how the eastern routes might affect the Crescenta Valley, especially in conjunction with the 710 Extension project. It seems that any tunneling associated with the HSR or the 710 would adversely affect the air quality because of dirt-hauling trucks during construction and ventilation systems during operation. Other negative impacts would be increased traffic and noise, again both during construction, which would last for years, and operation. Either massive construction project would seem to be out of sync with the Rim of the Valley Corridor Special Resource Study goals of giving more recreation opportunities to the people of the area and protecting some habitat for the animals.

Reminder that comments on the Rim of the Valley study are due June 30 and on the 710 Extension July 6. I hope you saw the news coverage of the Beyond the 710 group with better solutions than the meager options in the DEIR.

The next Crescenta Valley Community Association meeting will be June 25, starting at 7 p.m. at the La Crescenta Library, 2809 Foothill Blvd. where we will have updates on these and other local land use issues.