Subject: George Lucas v Marin County Brats: Grady Ranch Low-Income Housing
1:00 pm - 05/14/2012
George Lucas Studio Expansion Shut Down: Star Wars Creator Earmarks Grady Ranch for Low-Income Housing Development
George Lucas, who created and then besmirched the Star Wars saga, has trolled his tony Marin County neighbors in a masterful fashion:
George Lucas has planned a Lucasfilm studio expansion on Grady Ranch, a property he owns in the picturesque Lucas Valley (not named for him, by the way). However, his neighbors (such as they are: houses in that area are not really visible to each other) cock-blocked his moves at every turn.
Despite meticulous planning and environmental impact studies, it became clear that, if George Lucas' plan ever came to fruition (which it probably wouldn't), his studio would be surrounded by constantly hostile neighbors, who clearly hate Jawas.
George Lucas then decided to take the troll road: leveraging the very NIMBYism that scuppered his original plan. George Lucas has partnered with the Marin Community Foundation to develop the Grady Ranch property into a low-income housing development.
Marin County is a pretty affluent area overall, and Lucas Valley is affluent by Marin standards. Marin County brats do not like "affordable housing". Of course, Tupac Shakur is a product of affordable housing in Marin City, so perhaps they could reconsider.
This paragraph in the Chron made me laugh:
Several Lucas Valley Estates homeowners had, in fact, said that they considered the historic Lucas-owned farmland their back yards. They claimed the proposed 263,701-square-foot digital technology production complex was too large, would displace too much dirt, would change the course of a creek going through the area, create too much traffic and hadn't been studied enough.
Source: sfgate.com
The property is not the neighbors' back yards. It's Lucas' back yard. I should know, having been chased off the property on more than one occasion as a teenager. It's Lucas' own fault for having such climbing-friendly rocks on his property, so visible from Lucas Valley Road.
I don't really see this plan coming to fruition, given Lucas' neighbors' antipathy towards Jawas and Tusken Raiders, never mind real-life strangers. Still, these types of homeowners, in my opinion, richly deserve to get trolled.
Actually, Lucas Valley Road is not the ideal location for affordable housing, i.e. for people who have to work for a living: it's kind of a pain in the ass to get anywhere from Grady Ranch... and even then, you must deal with commuter traffic on 101. Not for nothing, but that traffic is the way it is because of NIMBYism as well: Marin could have had BART.
A few of the readers who tweeted this item went with "Use the troll, Luke", and I'm remiss for not thinking of it first.
Sauce
Additional Flavor
The Muffy's and Tad's of Marin should have let the movie studio get built. /kanyeshrug Hopefully something can be done to stick em in the eye in some way, shape, or form. PS: George Lucas and/or 'Use the troll, Luke' tag!?
George Lucas, who created and then besmirched the Star Wars saga, has trolled his tony Marin County neighbors in a masterful fashion:
George Lucas has planned a Lucasfilm studio expansion on Grady Ranch, a property he owns in the picturesque Lucas Valley (not named for him, by the way). However, his neighbors (such as they are: houses in that area are not really visible to each other) cock-blocked his moves at every turn.
Despite meticulous planning and environmental impact studies, it became clear that, if George Lucas' plan ever came to fruition (which it probably wouldn't), his studio would be surrounded by constantly hostile neighbors, who clearly hate Jawas.
George Lucas then decided to take the troll road: leveraging the very NIMBYism that scuppered his original plan. George Lucas has partnered with the Marin Community Foundation to develop the Grady Ranch property into a low-income housing development.
Marin County is a pretty affluent area overall, and Lucas Valley is affluent by Marin standards. Marin County brats do not like "affordable housing". Of course, Tupac Shakur is a product of affordable housing in Marin City, so perhaps they could reconsider.
This paragraph in the Chron made me laugh:
Several Lucas Valley Estates homeowners had, in fact, said that they considered the historic Lucas-owned farmland their back yards. They claimed the proposed 263,701-square-foot digital technology production complex was too large, would displace too much dirt, would change the course of a creek going through the area, create too much traffic and hadn't been studied enough.
Source: sfgate.com
The property is not the neighbors' back yards. It's Lucas' back yard. I should know, having been chased off the property on more than one occasion as a teenager. It's Lucas' own fault for having such climbing-friendly rocks on his property, so visible from Lucas Valley Road.
I don't really see this plan coming to fruition, given Lucas' neighbors' antipathy towards Jawas and Tusken Raiders, never mind real-life strangers. Still, these types of homeowners, in my opinion, richly deserve to get trolled.
Actually, Lucas Valley Road is not the ideal location for affordable housing, i.e. for people who have to work for a living: it's kind of a pain in the ass to get anywhere from Grady Ranch... and even then, you must deal with commuter traffic on 101. Not for nothing, but that traffic is the way it is because of NIMBYism as well: Marin could have had BART.
A few of the readers who tweeted this item went with "Use the troll, Luke", and I'm remiss for not thinking of it first.
Sauce
Additional Flavor
The Muffy's and Tad's of Marin should have let the movie studio get built. /kanyeshrug Hopefully something can be done to stick em in the eye in some way, shape, or form. PS: George Lucas and/or 'Use the troll, Luke' tag!?
For instance, we have a church down the street from us that expanded their building a few years ago and became just too damned big for the neighborhood. Yeah, it's their property, but when their building grew out to the point where they didn't have enough space on their property for adequate parking, it became everyone else's problem too. Our residential streets really weren't set up for heavy flows of traffic and large numbers of people parking on the streets (they are pretty narrow).
IDK, that quote about "well, it's my backyard!" just really rubbed me the wrong way, because a bunch of upper-class folks came in where I live and subdivision'd it up next to long-established farms and ranches, and then started going on the news and writing to newspapers complaining about the smells and the noise and basically demanding that the farmers and ranchers move because they 'didn't like living by farms and ranches', complete with the same nonsense "BUT THAT'S MYYYYYYY BACKYARD" line. It's when it's entitled people whining that it irks me.
It's like getting pulled over for running a red light and whining, "But it was yellow when I was coming up to it! How was I supposed to know it would turn red?"
I totally get that :)
They also reject the traditional farmhouses in favour of building new, ugly-as-fuck ones because they're easier to wire up for electricity and plumbing and so on, but that's another matter.