Diamond Bar : Development Plan Assailed

A Diamond Bar Municipal Advisory Council member plans to fight the approval last month of an 11-acre, 45-home development, saying that more park space, not homes, is needed in the unincorporated area.

Advisory council member Don Stokes said he is appealing a decision allowing the William Lyon Co. of Newport Beach to build the homes on a site that had been set aside for an elementary school.

After plans for the school fell through, the firm was granted permission to go ahead with the development. A hearing officer with the county Department of Regional Planning ruled at that time that a six-acre park already planned in the area satisfies county regulations for park space.

But Stokes disagreed, saying, “We have a problem here in Diamond Bar. We have 53,000 people and only about 60 acres of parks. We don’t have a park big enough to accommodate my church picnic.”