Would the Encanto Neighborhood Community Planning Group by any other name plan as effectively? The board members say yes, and want to change their name to Chollas Valley to clear up confusion.
The group represents eight neighborhoods, only one of which is Encanto.
"I've had people tell me they didn't come to our meetings because they thought it was just for Encanto," said Steve Ward, a planning group board member.
He also worries the name makes the other seven neighborhoods — Chollas View, Emerald Hills, Valencia Park, O'Farrell, Lincoln Park, Alta Vista and Broadway Heights — feel left out.
"Three quarters of the area's population of 48,000 do not live in Encanto," he said.
So Ward and the other board members want to change the name of their planning group and the Encanto Community Plan to Chollas Valley. They picked the name because all the neighborhoods are in the Chollas Creek watershed, and because the area has been called Chollas Valley since to the 1800s, he said.
Ward said he has nothing against the name Encanto — he lives in that neighborhood and is proud of it. He just wants a name that includes the other neighborhoods.
The planning group will adopt a new community plan update this year, so Ward said now is the time to make the change. The change can be made by a vote of the planning group board.
"If we don't change the name now, we'll probably be stuck with it until the next plan update 25 years down the road," he said.
Ward said his group hopes the plan update will include walkable, bike friendly communities centered around trolley stops at 47th Street, Euclid Avenue and 62nd Street. But much of that new development won't be in the Encanto neighborhood, so Ward worries it will be confusing.
"We anticipate and hope for new development here, and this name can be incorporated into that general community makeover," he said.
Ward said his group has been doing outreach for the past three months and have found people are receptive to the name change. He said they will continue to let people know about their plans for a new moniker and will make a final vote at the next meeting on Monday, Feb. 16.
A spokeswoman for City Councilwoman Myrtle Cole, who represents the area, said Cole supports whatever the planning group decides.
