Vent Hose
Sometimes rallying the troops isn’t enough. Having supporters writing letters, bringing their kids to a sound test and showing up at the courthouse wearing jerseys doesn’t always have the desired effect. The mainstream media still puts a negative spin on the proceedings, the powers that be deny your use permit, and the thousands of hours and hundreds of thousands of dollars you’ve sunk into your proposed motocross track vanish like so much exhaust smoke.That’s exactly what transpired over the winter when Southern Californian John Foley tried to open a new moto track in Sun Valley in the San Fernando Valley region of Los Angeles. There are other tracks in L.A. County-L.A. County Raceway, obviously, and I-5MX-but both of those are a good hour’s drive from downtown. Sun Valley MX Park would’ve been mere minutes away.The location wasn’t pretty, but it seemed ideal given the urban environment: an eight-acre former landfill at the fringes of an industrial park, adjacent to an RC car track, around the corner from a salvage yard, a half-mile from the I-5 freeway and right under the flight path of Burbank Airport. Who was going to object? A handful of neighbors, it turned out, most of who wouldn’t have heard the noise of the bikes over the cars and trucks and jets but they complained anyway. Call it “Not In My Backyard Syndrome.”It all came down to a final hearing, where 150 supporters lined up around the block and were allowed inside one at a time after passing through a metal detector. Most didn’t even make it into the courthouse to hear L.A. City Councilman Tony Cardenas shoot down the track.That decision came as a harsh blow to Foley, a general contractor who’d spent the past four-and-a-half years trying to push the track through. They say the wheels of justice turn slowly, but this is ridiculous. Foley actually started searching for a location seven years ago, considering no fewer than 32 sites before settling on the one in Sun Valley. The zoning process began in ’03, and in ’07 the City of Los Angeles Zoning Administrator and the North Valley Area Planning Commission both approved the plan.There were, however, several restrictions: The track wouldn’t be allowed to hold races; there would be a 96-decibel sound limit; and no more than 88 full-size bikes and 40 minis could be ridden there each day. Those restrictions stemmed from air quality, environmental impact and sound studies; in anticipation of which Foley installed power lines, water pipes and a sprinkler system, rough-graded the parking lot and erected a 30-foot-high earthen wall along the western property line.More crucially, three neighbors appealed the Zoning Administrator’s decision, which led to Councilman Cardenas’s condemnation. So now the ball is back in Foley’s court. “In over 20 years of owning and operating my construction company, I have never taken anyone to court or been taken to court,” he wrote on the would-be track’s website (www.sunvalleymotocross.com). “This is not something I want to do, but at this point I have no other option.”If Foley wins his appeal, his track could be open in as little as six weeks. But if he loses, he’ll be out of the approximately $1.5 million he’s invested in the project. Either way, it’s been a long and painful process that he frankly says he wouldn’t have undertaken if he’d known how difficult it was going to be.Why should you care about the plight of yet another SoCal motocross track? Because this isn’t an isolated incident; all tracks face these sorts of obstacles, not just to open, but to remain open. And it’s only going to get tougher in the future.Remember that the next time you bitch about the gate fee at your local track.
Sometimes rallying the troops isn’t enough. Having supporters writing letters, bringing their kids to a sound test and showing up at the courthouse wearing jerseys doesn’t always have the desired effect. The mainstream media still puts a negative spin on the proceedings, the powers that be deny your use permit, and the thousands of hours and hundreds of thousands of dollars you’ve sunk into your proposed motocross track vanish like so much exhaust smoke.That’s exactly what transpired over the winter when Southern Californian John Foley tried to open a new moto track in Sun Valley in the San Fernando Valley region of Los Angeles. There are other tracks in L.A. County-L.A. County Raceway, obviously, and I-5MX-but both of those are a good hour’s drive from downtown. Sun Valley MX Park would’ve been mere minutes away.The location wasn’t pretty, but it seemed ideal given the urban environment: an eight-acre former landfill at the fringes of an industrial park, adjacent to an RC car track, around the corner from a salvage yard, a half-mile from the I-5 freeway and right under the flight path of Burbank Airport. Who was going to object? A handful of neighbors, it turned out, most of who wouldn’t have heard the noise of the bikes over the cars and trucks and jets but they complained anyway. Call it “Not In My Backyard Syndrome.”It all came down to a final hearing, where 150 supporters lined up around the block and were allowed inside one at a time after passing through a metal detector. Most didn’t even make it into the courthouse to hear L.A. City Councilman Tony Cardenas shoot down the track.That decision came as a harsh blow to Foley, a general contractor who’d spent the past four-and-a-half years trying to push the track through. They say the wheels of justice turn slowly, but this is ridiculous. Foley actually started searching for a location seven years ago, considering no fewer than 32 sites before settling on the one in Sun Valley. The zoning process began in ’03, and in ’07 the City of Los Angeles Zoning Administrator and the North Valley Area Planning Commission both approved the plan.There were, however, several restrictions: The track wouldn’t be allowed to hold races; there would be a 96-decibel sound limit; and no more than 88 full-size bikes and 40 minis could be ridden there each day. Those restrictions stemmed from air quality, environmental impact and sound studies; in anticipation of which Foley installed power lines, water pipes and a sprinkler system, rough-graded the parking lot and erected a 30-foot-high earthen wall along the western property line.More crucially, three neighbors appealed the Zoning Administrator’s decision, which led to Councilman Cardenas’s condemnation. So now the ball is back in Foley’s court. “In over 20 years of owning and operating my construction company, I have never taken anyone to court or been taken to court,” he wrote on the would-be track’s website (www.sunvalleymotocross.com). “This is not something I want to do, but at this point I have no other option.”If Foley wins his appeal, his track could be open in as little as six weeks. But if he loses, he’ll be out of the approximately $1.5 million he’s invested in the project. Either way, it’s been a long and painful process that he frankly says he wouldn’t have undertaken if he’d known how difficult it was going to be.Why should you care about the plight of yet another SoCal motocross track? Because this isn’t an isolated incident; all tracks face these sorts of obstacles, not just to open, but to remain open. And it’s only going to get tougher in the future.Remember that the next time you bitch about the gate fee at your local track.
