The Camillo Road Disaster: Before And After

Probably just about the worst example ever of the consequences of lot splitting in Sierra Madre. From what was once the kind of bucolic setting this town is famous for, to a pair of packed, stacked and indescribably ugly structures that only a time-serving SCAG apparatchik could love. Proving once again that when it comes to development of this sort, density truly is a state of their mind.

I have received a number of emails and blog comments about this. Here is an example of what people are saying here about the Camillo Road disaster:

That observation was followed up by this comment:

However, Caroline Brown, had this to say:

So if Caroline is right (and over the years I have learned that she often is), apparently the City of Sierra Madre is wide open to this variety of predatory development, and there is nothing whatsoever in place to stop the kinds of destruction the Camillo Road disaster represents. 

That is, until the recent two year building moratorium was put into place. Making this an instance where the drought is actually working for us. We now have approximately 23 months left to put something in place that will guarantee that this kind of thing never happens here again.

Another notable thing about this project, and something that has already been commented about on this site, is that there is absolutely no signage in front of the place. Nothing about who is building it, or what they think they're doing. No cloying real estate jabber welcoming you to "Boxwood Estates" or whatever chump chatter they're calling this mess. 

And, perhaps most telling of all, absolutely none of the usual helpful informational signage from the City of Sierra Madre. When has that ever happened before? 

Something that also begs the following question. Do our employees downtown ever leave their offices and actually look around this town? Is it possible that you could build the architectural equivalent of both sides of a horse's ass in Sierra Madre (and on a single lot, no less) and nobody from our overweening local government agency will ever find out about it?

That would certainly seem to explain a lot of what is going on here lately. Though I suppose there are other possibilities as well. Maybe they do know all about this and have only considered the increased tax and rate collection possibilities. When you are carrying some of the highest costing employee health plans in the entire United States of America, fund raising can become an important priority. And perhaps for them the only one they care to consider.

I tried to dig up information about any of this excitement on the City's website, and not surprisingly I could find nothing. Not to say that there isn't anything to be found, it is just that their site is so idiotically programmed and clumsy to use I couldn't get anything to show up. And I am generally pretty good at finding things on the Internet. 

Just for laughs, if you go to the City of Sierra Madre's website and type the words "Camillo Road" into the search engine, these are the first six results that come up:

A steady diet of nothing, as they say. It is as if Camillo Road doesn't even exist. Though I'll bet there are a few property and other tax charts somewhere.