How will the 'big box' be regulated?

I beg to differ with Ms. Carraway-Bowman's letter advocating a Lowe's as the best use of the last vacant major parcel in our community.

Ms. Carraway-Bowman stated that the "initiative does not take design control away from the city." Page 2 of the "Plain Language Description of (a) Measure" (PLD) and common sense conclude otherwise.

Ask yourself, would Lowe's spend millions on the detailed site plan in the initiative and in processing the ballot box effort needed to get around the city council and still let the city control their project? Of course not.

Item 4 of the PLD provides that currently, without this measure, the city's design review decision on a planned development permit is "discretionary," i.e., it may or may not be granted by the council in their discretion.

Item 4 goes on to state that if the measure is passed, the project would be subject to council review under a "modified . . . process," as the measure "declares that planned development permit applications for that parcel would have to be approved if they substantially conform with the Measure's development and design standards, conditions, exhibits, and terms."

Thus, whatever the measure itself states as to design, if contained in the permit application, must be approved by the council. Such approval, per the PLD, is "ministerial and exempt from review under CEQA (Calif. Environmental Quality Act)." So, even the project impacts do not have to be mitigated.

The "more than 108 conditions" incorporated into the initiative are conditions selected by the Lowe's authors of the initiative, not by the city council.

The very first condition states this is "a specific approval of the Lowe's home improvement store" as depicted in the initiative.

So, unless every voter has read every one of the over 108 conditions and is in agreement with them, a yes vote might bring them quite a surprise. Once approved, those conditions cannot be revised, amended or otherwise altered by the city council.

A pig in a poke, anyone? Barbara Erickson Westlake Village