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Soon a blizzard of lawn signs erupted throughout the area. Meetings were held, articles published, blogs blogged, dignitaries dignified and designated, and in general a lot of people started talking. All of which is hardly what you're looking for when you're trying to negotiate a large and potentially highly profitable real estate deal. Take the drive up Sunnyside sometime.
We're talking about the Passionist Fathers' Mater Dolorosa monastery here, of course, and their current plans to sell their lower stretch of acreage to a housing developer. Someone who then plans to squeeze in as many houses as possible without inviting any unfortunate comparisons to Calcutta. A place where they apparently have the reputation for building densely packed housing, and not of the best kind.
As we all know, real estate in Sierra Madre is hot right now. There is some serious dough to be made, but you never know when Uncle Sugar is going to shut down the cheap money tap. So you have got to act quick. You don't want to "miss the market" as they like to say.
"Quantitative Easing" is only effective up to a point, and the Feds have lately become a little touchy about people making unfortunate comparisons to similarly unwise massive money printing initiatives. The Weimar Republic's fateful policies among them. Time is of the essence here. You have to get your deal done fast.
So what usually happens in a case like this is the at-risk party involved hires a public relations outfit and attempts to ease the suspicions (and possibly even rancor) of those who are making such an unfortunate ruckus about your sweet land deal. Which in this case are all those darned neighbors with their lawn signs. And what we the people in the area so afflicted have been receiving lately is a small rainforest's worth of mailings designed to allay our fears and bring back the good times.
It would now appear that many monkeys have been made homeless in this effort.
Of course, we here in Sierra Madre have borne sad witness to such mailbox appeals before. The now legendary "1,000 Post Cards Of Infamy" associated with the "No On Measure V" campaign being the standard by which we judge such things.
Here are a few passages from a recent letter, dated January 23 of this still new year. I have bolded all the emotional buzz words, and trust me, this one is juicy with them. Like a big orange. It might be a new record.
As promised in my last letter to you in 2013, I wanted to provide you with an update on our progress as we pursue the sale of a portion of our property.
We continue to be engaged in discussions with a number of interested parties about the possible future use of our land. These meetings are the culmination of a deliberate and thoughtful process (Mod: it is always a process) at Mater Dolorosa - dating back to 2007 - about what type of land use would be most compatible with the needs of our Retreatants, our neighbors and the City of Sierra Madre.
We have explored a variety of development and non-development pathways before deciding on the current approach.
In this effort, I feel blessed to have the help of many longstanding supporters of Mater Dolorosa who are sharing their time and professional talents as we strive to make prudent decisions. Our volunteers have expertise in city planning, real estate, the law, and zoning regulations and I am most grateful for their counsel as these are areas not well covered in the seminary! Because most of our property-use volunteers are current Retreatants, they have a deep understanding of the Passionist Mission which always informs our decision-making. We have, of course, also had the guidance of professional consultants provided by our Province leadership.
I invite you to visit our Mater Dolorosa website (www.materdolorosa.org) as this will be the primary way we will communicate news related to our development project. I have come to appreciate that posting information to our website under the Property News tab is the most efficient way to quickly and simultaneously communicate with the many interested communities. Whenever there is something new to report, I'll make sure to write about it and post it to our website. If I am busy with retreat responsibilities when something new happens, I'll ask one of my colleagues to post that information to the website so anyone interested will receive it in a timely manner.
We continue to be in touch with the relevant city departments who will be involved in a possible sale and we are listening to the comments of those in the community who both oppose and support possible development.
This sad mess gladdens me little.
Beneath the unfortunately unctuous sounding appeals expressed throughout this obviously professionally prepared document is a very sour message, one intended to marginalize the concerns of those unfortunate enough to live nearby their land deal.
Here is my summary: They have a lot of support from the people they care about the most, their Retreatants. Your opinions, while you are our neighbor, count. But they are only one of many varied viewpoints on this matter. We will take them into account of course, but honestly it is a burden and we do have other important things to do with our time as well. Read our website. Plus there are professionals involved, along with "Property-use volunteers" and others who are actually helping us here, and you certainly are not among them. So don't expect any miracles. We will listen to you as a neighbor, as we will listen to all of the many viewpoints, but do not expect us to in any way put your opinions or concerns above anyone else.
In other words, remember who you are and do not presume that what you have to say is in any way of more importance than the many other weighty matters we need to deal with here. You are not at the center of our concerns, but we care anyway.
Like I said, stripped of all its pretenses this is not a very pleasant document.
The apparent issue for the Passionists is that they are an aging population, are in various kinds of institutional decline, and like so many of us with elderly people in the family, caring for them is an expensive burden that must be dealt with. So much so that they have felt the need to sell off some of their assets.
The sale being aggressively pushed for here in Sierra Madre is not the only one. Here is an account from New York Newsday (link) on a similar effort back east.
Shelter Island compound on market for first time - For the first time in almost a century of private ownership, a nearly 25-acre property on Coecles Harbor in Shelter Island is now available.
The compound has been owned by the Passionist order of priests since 1911, and the grounds have been home to St. Gabriel's Spiritual Center for Youth since the 1960s.
The Passionists decided to leave the property since they no longer have the personnel to operate the center and need to sell the land to help pay for health care for their aging members, a representative told Newsday last year.
The 24.8-acre property is listed with Chris Burnside of Brown Harrs Stevens for $19.9 million. There are 10 buildings, including a 29-room guesthouse, a long boat dock, a pool and a chapel. The property also has 1,500 feet of beach frontage, tennis and basketball courts.
If you don’t need quite that much room, but still want a spectacular Shelter Island hideaway, a 7,500-square-foot Mediterranean-style home with six bedrooms and 7½ an baths on 3.6 acres has also come on the market.
Amenities include guest quarters, elevator, a courtyard with fountains, a roof garden and a fresh water pond stocked with fresh water bass. There’s also a tennis court with a pavilion, a croquet court and a dock on Shelter Island sound. It's all for $4.9 million, listed with Seth Madore of The Corcoran Group.
This article is dated July 23, 2009. A reasonably long time ago in the real-estate and retirement sense.
Unfortunately for you, and outside of state lottery tickets of course, your home is likely your main retirement asset as well. And should the Passionist's "lower 20" be stacked and packed with the kinds of California Generica rumored to be under consideration for that site, your investment is going to take a big hit. Property values in the area will suffer greatly. And not just during the chaos that is to be expected during the years of construction.
Oh, and that bit about being in touch with the City of Sierra Madre? They, of course, are doing some pension funding of their own right now. Wave the possibility of large land use fees under that wet snout and the fat little puppy will roll over and play dead just as quick as you can snap your fingers.
It is sad to think that an organization as land rich and influential as the Passionist Fathers never did the retirement planning you and I would have assumed they'd do. And rather than conducting their business in an upright and responsible manner, a portion of that effort must now instead come out of your sorely afflicted hide.
But that is what is happening. Passive-aggressive letters in the mail and all.
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