George Lucas Does Something Likeable For a Change: Revenge on Rich Neighbors

[DainBramaged]

George Lucas' rich neighbors don't want him building a movie studio in their backyard. His response is the best thing he's done in years.

According to the San Francisco Chronicle, for four decades Lucas has owned a large swath of land in Marin County in the North San Francisco Bay and has spent the past few years trying to transform the ranch on it into a massive, nearly 300,000 square foot, state-of-the-art movie studio complete with day care center, restaurant, gym and a 200-car garage. His neighbors, however, have rejected it every step of the way. Despite the promise of bringing $300 million worth of economic activity to the area, the already-well off neighbors are worried about years' worth of construction activity and the additional foot traffic it will bring into their neighborhood once completed.

The local homeowners association has been such a thorn in Lucas' side that he's decided to abandon the studio construction entirely, issuing this official statement about Lucasfilm's withdrawal of the new studio:

The level of bitterness and anger expressed by the homeowners in Lucas Valley has convinced us that, even if we were to spend more time and acquire the necessary approvals, we would not be able to maintain a constructive relationship with our neighbors.

We love working and living in Marin, but the residents of Lucas Valley have fought this project for 25 years, and enough is enough. Marin is a bedroom community and is committed to building subdivisions, not business. Many years ago, we tried to stop the Lucas Valley Estates project from being built, but we failed, and we now have a subdivision on our doorstep.

http://www.movies.com/movie-news/george-lucas-grady-ranch/7883


You are going to love what he is going to do with the property.........

[MineralMan]

1. Nice.

I like his new plan for the property. I bet his neighbors won't like it one bit.

On the other hand, it sounds like a revenge move. Something like that happened near where I lived in California. A wealthy business owner and landowner in the area had a large piece of property, located at a busy intersection, where there was a shopping mall and other businesses. His property was across the road from these businesses, and was being used for grazing cattle. He decided to sell it to Home Depot, which was planning to build a new store there.

As you'd expect, this got strong opposition from the owners of the shopping mall and the other businesses on that busy corner. They also stirred up opposition from people who lived in a residential neighborhood that was near the intersection. The local planning commission was about to cave in to the opponents of the project. It should be mentioned that the property in question was not in the city, but in the county, since the city limits were in the middle of the main road that passed by there.

Faced with the likely denial of permission for the project, the owner of that land pulled out his trump card. The property was zoned by the county for agricultural use. So, the owner declared his intent to turn it into a pig farm. It seems that he required no particular rezoning or any such thing for that agricultural use of the property, according to the zoning it had at the time. He could simply switch to raising pigs and there was nothing the city or county could do about it.

Today, there's a Home Depot on that property.

[csziggy]

5. Whenever I get mad at my neighbors I threaten to turn this place into a pig farm

It was a pig farm when I bought it in 1978 and it's zoned agricultural so no one could stop me. When I bought all the surrounding land was agricultural zoning, plantations, soy bean fields, etc. Gradually over the years the land around us has been sold, re-zoned, subdivided, and turned into single family housing.

For some reason the people who have moved in think that living in the 'country' entitles them to let their dogs run free, set off illegal fireworks for no particular reason, have live band performances that drown out other sounds for over a mile, run ATVs and mud trucks up and down the public roads, and generally be obnoxiously noisy idiots.

I think having a few pigs around could be profitable and chase off a few of the most obnoxious neighbors!

[MineralMan]

7. Plus, pigs add a certain special aroma to any neighborhood,

so there's that benefit, too.

[csziggy]

11. Oh yeah! Until we built this house and completely covered the pig wallow

From the pen that was at this spot when we bought this place every time it rained and water sat there, we could still smell the pig odor decades later!

Here is the pig wallow, as it was the first time we took pictures of the farm:


Here are some of the pigs that were here:


Now our house sits where those pigs lived, so if we wanted to raise pigs now we'd have to put the pens at a different place. Maybe closer to the most annoying, noisiest neighbors!

[MineralMan]

16. LOL! nt

[aquart]

2. Sweet.

[Iggy]

3. Thx for Posting This

Not sure.. but is this development (housing) by Lennar by any chance? I saw a headline
yesterday Lennar is getting funding from a CHINESE bank for a major project in
CA.. I think its the SF area.

Wonder what Lucas' neighbors think about that??

[TlalocW]

4. Man...

Lucas should have said, "Hello... Lucas Valley? The Dark Side knows no allegiance to any homeowner's association. Wipe them out... all of them!" at which point he would release either hundreds of Stormtroopers or Battledroids.

TlalocW

[coalition_unwilling]

6. Now that is an 'F-U' if ever there were one. Lucas

ought to recruit Michael Moore to document the project . . . - n/t

[Initech]

8. That is awesome - I think George has redeemed himself here.

[hughee99]

9. Good for Lucas if he does it, but I'll believe it when I see it.

Until they start moving people into the houses, I won't be convinced it's not just a negotiating ploy.

[DainBramaged]

10. After 25 years of fighting those snobs, it's no ploy, it's revenge

the town would have enjoyed MILLIONS of dollars in revenues from the studio from employees, builders, tax revenues. Instead, the snobs didn't
t want their little paradise disturbed.


Now they're fucked, and their goes the neighborhood.

[former9thward]

12. He is not going to do anything with the property.

This is just publicity on his part. If his fellow multimillionaire neighbors have the power to stop his studio, they are going to have the power to stop his "affordable" housing plans.

[DerekG]

13. Stop bashing Lucas! Revenge of the Sith was a good movie!

n/t

[spanone]

14. ....

So what is George Lucas going to do with his property now that he's tired of his rich neighbors putting up a not-in-my-backyard stink? He wants to transform the property into low-income housing, naturally, ending their official statement with this zinger, "If everyone feels that housing is less impactful on the land, then we are hoping that people who need it the most will benefit."

He's working with the Marin Community Foundation to instead construct affordable housing for either low-income families or seniors living on small, fixed incomes. In order to smooth along the development, he's already given them all of the pricey technical studies and land surveys Lucasfilm spent years conducting. And we think that's just great. Because if there's one thing rich people will hate more than having movie magic made in their backyard, it's poor people moving in.

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[DainBramaged]

15. Bestest line of the year

if there's one thing rich people will hate more than having movie magic made in their backyard, it's poor people moving in.

[Earth_First]

17. So using low income and seniors as pawns and puppets to smite other millionaires is +1 material...?

How about Lucas uses that $300 million in downtown LA were the building footprints already exist and additional greenspace is not disturbed in the name of thumbing one's nose at his wealthy opposition...?

Right. Because this has little to do with actually helping the poor and everything to do with a vendetta.

This bothers me...

[DainBramaged]

19. And you can do what about it?

at the very least the poor and seniors get housing they could ill afford in that neighborhood, and this is a bad thing?



There are A LOT of threads I disagree with on DU, and I found a simple solution to my disagreeability


I don't bother commenting.


Thinks we cannot change should not be our concern


I enjoyed the article, sorry you didn't.

[XemaSab]

20. I'm totally with you

There's no public transportation or access to jobs out there.

It's not a good spot for low-income housing.

[Prophet 451]

18. I may yet forgive him for Jar-Jar n/t

[XemaSab]

21. Fuck open space

Let's turn Lucas Valley into a giant strip mall while we're at it.

The reason that they didn't want a MASSIVE BUSINESS going in behind their houses isn't that they're assholes, it's that Marin is very serious about open space. Because they're serious about open space, rich people live there.

Lucas could clearly give a shit about open space. If he wants to live in a hick area where zoning doesn't matter and nobody gives a shit about open space, he's welcome to move to Shasta county. We need the jobs.