Letter: Architectural lunacy

Editor, The Friday Flyer

Several years ago the POA Board created a committee to study and make recommendations in connection with a new front entry gate. A day was spent in the Palm Springs area inspecting over 40 fashionable entries connected with private, gated communities.

The plan we unanimously chose included two larger freestanding guard shacks with more architectural detail than what has been built. The guard shacks were not to be erected independent of a architectural pleasing pre-entry structure that spanned the full width of the traffic lanes, and featured led signage across the fascia for traffic control and for community messages.

It did not include a bathroom with doors facing the lanes of traffic.
The Board have spent over $1M building what you now see.

The pre-entry structure was abandoned in a display of arrogance and lack of experience. The total permitted original design could be completed for less than $270,000 were it not for personalities on the Board.

The new group in power have decided that they would prefer a bit of Lego-Land at our front entry. The concept they have adopted is amateurish and will be offensive once built for its lack of quality and visual appeal.

The waterfalls on two sides of a replica lighthouse will be the type purchased at Home Depot. A quality waterfall costs in the $250,000 and up range. Placing four small water falls next to a couple of shower head
fountains, and a miniature lighthouse smacks of a “little bit of this” and “a little bit of that.” It is so amateurish that it will reflect poorly on ones impression of Canyon Lake.

First, you were taken to the cleaners with the current cost, and now you are being denied a fashionable, aesthetic entry as per the approved, and permitted plans The new plan does not coordinate with the guard shacks and is so poorly conceived as to be
aesthetically challenged. A small group has created architectural lunacy.

Warren Kelsey