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Neighbors urge limits on high‑rise plans at Camino Real; cite traffic and pedestrian safety worries
Summary
Residents told the CRA on Oct. 27 that a revised proposal to add eight‑story residential buildings and a seven‑story parking garage at the Camino Real/Third Avenue parcel conflicts with the neighborhood’s two‑story scale and raises traffic and pedestrian safety concerns.
Pam Paschke and Les Wilson spoke during public requests on Oct. 27 to object to proposed changes to the Camino Real/Third Avenue parcel and to raise pedestrian and bicycling safety concerns in the Camino Square area.
Pam Paschke, a resident of 341 Southwest Second Street, said the original approval for the parcel anticipated low‑rise retail buildings for the second phase and an eight‑story residential proposal on another portion, but that a new plan would replace the planned low‑rise retail with an eight‑story residential building and a seven‑story parking garage. Paschke said the parcel’s revised plan ‘‘was not anticipated when the original approval came through’’ and that ‘‘to put that kind of a monstrosity on Third Avenue would be terrible.’’ She noted that, other than a building near the railroad tracks, ‘‘there is no other building besides the Fitzgerald that exceeds three stories in this entire area.’’
Les Wilson, who said he has lived in Camino Square since 1999, presented a slide‑based explanation of mobility constraints. Wilson pointed to shared entrances, frontage, and an FEC train crossing that can stop traffic; he emphasized that pedestrian and bike infrastructure in the area often consists of 6‑foot sidewalks and highlighted an unsignalized high‑speed right turn that crosses a marked crossing and a bike lane. Wilson said that hedges encroaching onto sidewalks and three hard right turns ‘‘consume the entire sidewalk’’ and that the described walking and biking environment would be ‘‘overloaded’’ by significant new residential development.
Chair Wachter reminded the speakers that the CRA workshop following the meeting would address related topics and encouraged residents to return. No formal action on the Camino Real parcel was taken during the CRA meeting.
The public comments combined neighborhood‑scale context (building heights and existing two‑story multifamily to the north), traffic circulation points (U‑turns, shared frontage, proximity to the Valero station), and pedestrian‑infrastructure deficiencies (6‑foot sidewalks, unsignalized crosswalks, hedges obstructing sightlines) as reasons to oppose or seek changes to the developer’s revised plan.
