More on Bananas

The AZ Republic has an article today featuring a woman who is very much opposed to the proposed water park/ice rink for Crossroads Park:

Many words can describe Sandra Avery: Neighbor. Pet owner. Skeptic.

Shy isn't one of them, especially when it comes to protecting her Gilbert home.

A plan to bring a water park and ice-skating rink to her Cottonwood Crossing neighborhood has her talking.

"This can't stand," Avery said of the idea. "Residents here won't let it."

Avery plans to tell Gilbert's Parks and Recreation Advisory Board on Thursday night that the proposed facility is a bad fit for her neighborhood.

I posted on some of the acronyms encountered by developers here; the one that came to mind as I read this article was BANANA – Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anything. And it reminded me once again that human nature is a funny thing. I’m a well-educated, reasonably intelligent person that loves living in Gilbert in general and in Morrison Ranch in particular, and I find myself wondering exactly what Ms. Avery thinks ought to happen in the expansion of Crossroads Park, which is and has always been laid out as a regional (think big) park. Doesn’t this feel like a park-like use? How does opposing this project “protect her home”? Her stated reason for opposing this is increased traffic; I wonder if she knows that a regional mall is going in about a mile down the road, and people will have to drive to get to this destination site. And this is where human nature enters the picture.

When we began dreaming about how Morrison Ranch ought to look, feel and be laid out, and then got involved in the zoning process to make that happen, we experienced a similar reaction. Frankly, I was stunned and deeply hurt by some of the comments made about our project and our family. I kept wondering if these folks would prefer we just sell our land piecemeal to various builders, and then they’d have to live with whatever the builders offered. But the Mister understood it better, and pointed out to me that they didn’t want ANY change; they wanted it to be the way it had been for the past 2, 5, 10 or 25 years, depending on how long they’d lived here. He reminded me it had taken a while for him to accept that the status quo was not an option anymore, and these folks were still struggling with that concept.

My next question was why there seemed to be so many opposing viewpoints aired in public when I knew that there were plenty of people who were in favor of our project, and those folks never seemed to be quoted. Again, he patiently explained that it’s far easier to get worked up in opposition to something; if someone is in favor, they hope that it goes through, but they aren’t as likely to expend time and energy to help it along. So just because the newspaper or the town council meetings show far more opposers than admirers, it doesn’t mean that’s a representative sample of the population. In fact, if there are SOME proponents among the neighbors, that’s a pretty good indicator that there is substantial support for a project. Take me, for example; I’m basically in favor of this park expansion; but I probably won’t be at the meeting on Thursday to say so, and I may or may not get around to writing a letter to the editor or emailing the town. Human nature; I am busy like everyone else, and will only give time to those things most important to me.

Thankfully, Morrison Ranch is under way. I have been surprised again (and pleasantly so!) to see that several of the most vocal detractors have changed their minds about Morrison Ranch (see here, for example) and are now declaring it to be a fine idea. Who knows? Maybe Ms. Avery will someday laud the water park as a great place for Gilbert kids to keep out of trouble.

Human nature; you gotta love it.