We’ve seen this before — at the Arte apartments

Rancho Cucamonga already knows what happens when the city approves dense housing before it plans for the impact. The city approved the Arte apartments at Foothill Boulevard and Hermosa Avenue — 182 units on a tight corridor lot — with a 25% reduction in the parking its own code requires. The predictable overflow pushed the city to create special permit-parking districts on nearby residential streets, and led to the strange back-in angled parking now on Hermosa Avenue, where drivers must stop in a live travel lane and reverse into the spaces. Then, in January 2023, the city struck an after-the-fact deal: the developer would put up just $400,000 toward widening Hermosa Avenue to add parking, while taxpayers covered the rest of the $1,069,056 construction contract.

And when those bills came to the council, Lynne Kennedy didn’t just go along for the ride — she personally made the motion to approve both the funding agreement (January 2023) and the $1,069,056 widening contract (April 2023). Each passed 5-0, waved through on the routine “consent calendar” with no debate.

Now she’s doing it again — on a much bigger scale

On January 21, 2026, Kennedy, along with other members of the city council, voted 5 to 0 to approve a major density increase as part of the Etiwanda Heights Neighborhood & Conservation Plan (Ordinance No. 1055). It raised the allowed density to as much as 8 homes per acre and, for the first time, allowed apartment buildings of up to 12 units — enough to potentially double the number of homes on the site, from roughly 2,700 to as many as about 5,780. The developer that asked for the increase, The Previti Group / Frontier Enterprises, told the city that building only single-family homes “just doesn’t pencil.”

Here is the problem. The city’s own environmental study — prepared for the smaller, original plan — already projected more than 31,000 new car trips a day, several intersections failing at the worst rating (level of service “F”), and an Etiwanda school district “already over capacity.” Kennedy’s council roughly doubled the potential housing anyway, and approved it on an “addendum” that required no new traffic study and no new school study.

This is a wildfire zone

The land subject to the Etiwanda Heights Neighborhood & Conservation Plan sits in a very high-fire-hazard severity zone along the base of the foothills with limited access roads. The 2014 Etiwanda Fire forced the evacuation of about 1,650 homes. Residents have raised a fair question that has never been fully answered: how do you safely evacuate thousands of additional residents from those foothills when the next fire comes?

Who this really serves

The land beneath Etiwanda Heights was sold by San Bernardino County to Previti’s company in a no-competitive-bid deal for $93 million — and the county supervisors who approved that sale are among Lynne Kennedy’s own endorsers. The Previti tie runs straight to her campaign account, too: in 2020, James Previti — president of Frontier Communities, the company now behind the development of Etiwanda Heights — personally gave money to Kennedy’s campaign. Further, real-estate and building-industry money has backed Kennedy in every campaign since 2016: the state Realtors’ PAC and the Building Industry Association’s PAC cycle after cycle, apartment- and manufactured-housing PACs, and a steady roster of developers, homebuilders, and commercial real-estate brokers. All told, real-estate and building-industry donors have given her about $44,500 across her four campaigns since 2016 — more than $25,000 of it has come as part of her 2026 run for mayor alone. (Every contribution is listed by name, amount, and date in the sources below.) Rancho residents deserve to know whose interests come first when the roads, the schools, and the safety of our neighborhoods are on the line.

Oliver King will plan first

Oliver King is not anti-development. He supports growth that fits Rancho Cucamonga and comes with the roads, schools, and wildfire safety to support it. But the Etiwanda Heights Neighborhood & Conservation Plan, as amended and approved, was not properly vetted — and if it is built at the density Kennedy approved, our children will sit in overcrowded classrooms, our families will crawl through failing intersections, and all of us will be left paying for band-aid fixes like the ones already scarring Hermosa Avenue.

King’s plan is straightforward: scale the Etiwanda Heights Neighborhood & Conservation Plan back, and properly vet the project before anything touches the dirt — right-size the density to match the foothill neighborhood, and require the infrastructure up front, before approval, not after. The only way to force that rethink is a new mayor who will demand it.

Vote Oliver King for Mayor. Plan first. Build right. Keep Rancho, Rancho.

Sources — verify it yourself

• Kennedy’s Jan. 21, 2026 vote to approve the density increase, with The Previti Group named as applicant — City/State CEQA Notice of Determination
• Watch the Jan. 21, 2026 City Council meeting — cityofrc.new.swagit.com video
• Developer says single-family “just doesn’t pencil” — San Bernardino County Sentinel (Dec. 2025)
• 31,000+ daily car trips, failing intersections, schools “over capacity” — Etiwanda Heights EIR record (CEQAnet)
• Etiwanda Heights fire and evacuation concerns — Rancho Cucamonga residents / Preservation Society
• Arte developer-funding agreement ($400,000 developer share; states the 25% parking reduction) — Kennedy made the motion, 5-0 (Jan. 18, 2023) — City Council item 23-4168
• $1,069,056 Hermosa widening contract — Kennedy made the motion, 5-0 (Apr. 19, 2023) — City Council item
• Minor Exceptions (like Arte’s parking reduction) are administrative Planning Director decisions — RC Municipal Code §17.16.110
• Hermosa Avenue widening completed (Dec. 6, 2023) — City Council notice of completion
• City announces back-in angled parking at Hermosa & Foothill — City of Rancho Cucamonga news
• $93 million no-competitive-bid county land sale to Previti — San Bernardino County Sentinel
• Kennedy’s endorsements (including supervisors who approved the land sale) — lynne4rancho.com

Kennedy’s real-estate & building-industry money — a decade-long pattern

Search every Kennedy filing yourself at the Rancho Cucamonga campaign-finance portal (NetFile): public.netfile.com/pub2/?AID=CRC

Real-estate, development, and building-industry contributions in Kennedy’s FPPC filings, by campaign (most recent first). For 2016–2024 these come from “24-hour” late reports, which capture only gifts of $1,000 or more — so the true totals are higher.

2026 — Lynne Kennedy for Mayor

2024 — Lynne Kennedy for City Council

2020 — Lynne Kennedy for City Council

2016 — Lynne Kennedy for City Council

Total listed: about $44,500 (2016–2026) — a documented floor; the 2016–2024 late reports capture only gifts of $1,000 or more, so the real figure is higher.