Gearing Up For Bike Plans, Memorial

Columnist: Robert Price
Tuesday March 05, 2002, 11:05:02 PM

Norm Hoffman would have been pleased. Twice.

The late Bakersfield College professor and local fitness icon is on tonight's Bakersfield City Council agenda -- once specifically in name and once solely in spirit.

The council is expected to formally proclaim March 16 Norm Hoffman Day -- and at some point will probably also applaud the pending dedication of a memorial to the world-class cyclist, who was hit by a car and killed while on a training ride almost a year ago.

Hoffman would surely have been just as happy about the evening's non-Norm cycling item.

Kyle Carter Homes Inc. will formally drop its opposition to the Paladino-Miramonte leg of the northeast Bakersfield bike trail, clearing the first major impediment to a safe, Hart-Park-to-Kern-River Canyon bicycle route.

The point man for Kyle Carter Homes, which had previously sought to have the bike path moved out of a proposed Carter development, says the company will no longer appeal a Planning Commission decision from January, which had called for the path to be laid out as originally approved.

Kyle Carter himself plans to attend tonight's council meeting, but he now sees the meeting merely as "a forum for clarification," according to Tim Carter, who's coordinating development of the 295-acre Tuscany development on Bakersfield's northeastern frontier.

Chalk it up to a clearer mutual understanding among the people representing construction, government and recreation, said Tim Carter, cousin of the company's chief executive.

"Hopefully we have all learned a lesson that better communication can resolve issues," he says.

Kyle Carter Homes is the first developer to take the big leap and move into the largely undeveloped area east of Morning Drive since the city started work on a new pumping station, expected to be running by September.

Planners figure the new northeast will one day have an additional 60,000 people. The city-county Master Bikeways Plan, which calls for bicycle paths and lanes all the way to the mouth of the canyon, is a key recreational element in the overall vision for that growth.

Kyle Carter Homes, one of the city's biggest and best-respected residential operations, plans a 331-home, gated community near the northeast corner of Highway 178 and Alfred Harrell Highway. The development, dubbed Tuscany, was approved in February 2001 with one major change from the city's original plan for the area: At Carter's request, Paladino Drive would dead-end at Alfred Harrell, rather than crossing into the development, and the bike trail would be rerouted through the subdivision's local streets.

But in September, the company asked that the bike trail be deleted entirely. On. Jan. 17, by a unanimous vote, the Bakersfield Planning Commission rejected that request, citing concerns about rider safety.

Kyle Carter, whose associates have discussed at least three different bike-route options with city officials and local cyclists, initially said he would appeal to the City Council, but last week decided just to find a way to make the approved plan work.

That's good news for everybody.

It's good for the city's planning department, spared from squaring off again against a developer it regards as creative and forward-thinking. It's good for cyclists, both the hard-core guys and the short-distance recreational riders who will one day live in that area, because they won't be subjected to the dangers of close proximity to highway traffic. And it's good for Carter Homes, which comes off looking like a recreation benefactor.

Tim and Kyle Carter say they aren't sure how anyone could have gotten any other idea anyway. Builders' plans, they say, are often modified after they've been initially approved -- "Happens all the time," agrees Stan Grady, city planning director -- and in the case of Tuscany, there was a need to get the bureaucratic ball rolling. Carter Homes, after all, is writing a monthly check for that piece of land, with no chance to recoup the investment for many months, perhaps years.

Sometimes, in the midst of the pre-construction process, "things become apparent that weren't apparent before," Grady concedes.

In the case of the Tuscany bike route, it was the liability issue. Gated communities have private roads, but bike trails are public easements. If someone is hurt on a trail, would Tuscany's homeowners' association be responsible?

City Attorney Bart Thiltgen, likening the situation to beach-access arrangements near ocean-front homes, says it can be worked out satisfactorily for all.

We look forward to seeing it happen.

More Norm: Local cyclists and other friends will celebrate Norm Hoffman Day both the morning and evening of March 16. There will be a dedication of the Hoffman memorial at 10 a.m. on the Bakersfield College campus, followed by a bike rally, and a Hoffman Scholarship Fund barbecue at Coconut Joe's Beach Club (4000 Easton Drive, Suite 2), from 5 to 10 p.m. that evening.

For details on the dinner ($25, with music and beach volleyball) or related activities, visit ronjones.org or coconutjoes.com

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