Lakewood Village Development Scam

I think there is a really good "David and Goliath" story out there waiting to be told in Lakewood Village. This would be the test case of the potential devastation that can be caused by the proposed Land Use Plan. Neighbors are seriously putting their homes up for sale in anticipation of this project going through. The owner of Parkview Village (also known as The Triangle), Benjamin Efraim, has been working on a development plan to put in a mixed use development of over 300 apartment units. He has been in contact with Councilwoman Mungo for over a year, but the residents in that area were in the dark until just recently.

The update of the Land Use Plan has produced a lot of angst with the neighbors and the Lakewood Village Neighborhood Association (LVNA – President Bruce DeMille). The place type maps have seesawed back and forth between commercial and mixed use. The last update of the maps took the area back to commercial. As you can imagine, the owner is fit to be tied as he is seeing millions of dollars evaporate if he can't get it rezoned to mixed use. The owner went to the Planning Commission meeting and lied through their teeth saying they were working with the neighborhoods and the neighborhoods were okay with it. Jane Templin (planning commissioner) almost fell for it and asked staff to change the designation back to "mixed use." The crowd at that meeting let out an audible scream of “No!" and she backed off, leaving it commercial.

Efraim is now engaged in lobbying "the decision makers" to get it changed to mixed use. He has apparently been instructed to do "outreach" to the neighbors as he has advertised "visioning sessions" at the local bar Cirivellos for two consecutive Saturdays (last one being this Saturday). This was advertised in the Grunion which is not delivered to Lakewood Village. Invitations were supposedly sent to the neighbors, but none of the board members of LVNA received one. DeMille, at his own expense, put out fliers to a portion of the neighborhood asking people to attend and he is collecting input to a survey as people leave the visioning sessions on whether the people are in favor of the change or not.

The owner asked Mungo to support them in creating their own "neighborhood" account in Next Door. This would allow them to say that "the neighborhood is in agreement." The Triangle does not have any of the residental component, so it is just shop keepers that would be included in that "neighborhood." This is an attempt to delegitimize the LVNA. Pretty skanky huh?

People have put up on NextDoor that they feel they have to sell their property and leave (and they are serious) before construction starts.

Bruce DeMille (562/900-6869) has documentation on all the above.

Corliss Lee is a Candidate for District 5