Worth a thousand words?

Re: “Discover nature in Mission Valley” [Volume 10, Issue 8 or bit.ly/2bCUBJ2]

Read your piece in the Mission Valley News concerning the proposed River Park and want to comment.

I hope you keep a copy of the of the photo of the aerial view of the proposed River Park that accompanied the article for future reference. Developers here in San Diego have made it a business model of “bait and switch” when it comes to civic improvements and I’m sure the final product will look nothing like the artist’s rendering. It’ll be quite smaller, if indeed it comes off at all.

One need not travel far from the proposed River Park, the Civita eyesore, to see an example of a developer promising the community much, but when actual ground is broken, the project takes another course.

Promised parks and public infrastructure do not make money for a developer and more often than not an artist rendering is just a way for a developer to sell his/her project to those that will make the decision to approve a project, as well as those in the surrounding community that will be impacted by the project. It’s just “eye candy.”

—Stuart Rachmuth, San Diego