Star Wars director George Lucas strikes back against nimby neighbours

[MineralMan]

2. It's a time-honored strategy for getting what you want.

I'm betting it's just a threat to convince people to let him build his film studio. I've seen it happen before.

In San Luis Obispo, CA, a number of years ago, a wealthy landowner and developer wanted to develop some property for a commercial development, namely a big box store. The property was located across a main road from an existing shopping center, but was zoned for agriculture, not commercial use. That part of the city was becoming more and more commercial, and this particular property was at a main intersection, and near a freeway offramp. The city said no. It said that the property must remain agricultural in use, to act as a buffer against further commercial development in that part of town.

So, the property owner switched his plan to something agricultural. He decided to build a pig farm there, which was OK, according to the land-use regulations. A nice big pig farm, right across the street from a busy, large shopping center. He went as far as producing plans and artwork showing how the pig farm would look. The city, in fact, could not prohibit him from building his pig farm, because it was a conforming use of that land, which included livestock farming as an approved use.

Two years later, the big box store was opened. I suspect this is the sort of thing George Lucas has in mind. I predict that his wealthy neighbors will decide that a film studio would be more attractive to them than they originally though. The idea of low to moderate cost housing in their little enclave isn't going to be very appealing, I imagine, and Lucas well end up getting to build his original idea anyhow.