Grocery-carrying robots to come with new homes
Grocery-carrying robots come with new homes
Would-be developer of Lilac Hills housing project teams
with robotics company
Mugshot of J. Harry JonesBy J. Harry Jones | 4:02 p.m.
Oct. 1, 2015
CARLSBAD — Imagine a futuristic place where robots carry
your groceries home and automated, driverless golf carts pick you up at the dry
cleaners and deliver you to the doorstep of your suburban abode several blocks
away.
Now imagine that neighborhood in North County, within the
next decade.
That was the picture painted Thursday by developer Randy
Goodson and the chief of a Carlsbad robotics company who said they’re teaming
up to create a virtual rail system within the massive Lilac Hills Ranch
community that Goodson wants to build on 600 acres of semirural land north of
Escondido.
The pair held a demonstration Thursday to announce their
collaboration, just a few weeks before county supervisors are set to decide
whether Goodson’s company, Accretive Investments Inc., should be granted a
General Plan amendment that would allow the housing development to move
forward.
Some critics scoffed at the timing of the event, calling
it a high-tech publicity stunt.
But Goodson and 5D Robotics CEO David Bruemmer said the
automated features would fit perfectly into the “village” type community
Goodson has proposed — a 1,746-home neighborhood with parks and commercial
businesses where people would be able to walk everywhere.
Bruemmer said positioning sensors would be built into
light poles within the development, allowing different types of robots to
maneuver safely and precisely along sidewalks and walkways. Some of the robots
would be unmanned electric vehicles that would move people; others would be
transport robots that could carry groceries, or follow children as they walked
home from school to make sure they got there safely.
Goodson and Bruemmer said such technology is the wave of
the future and its use at Lilac Hills Ranch would be a first in the development
of a master-planned community.
Critics laughed at the idea.
“Did they use a robot to deliver this huge load of bull
manure?” former Supervisor Pam Slater-Price said in an interview, and in a
group email circulated mostly among people who oppose the project and have
argued it would ruin the undeveloped area where it has been proposed.
“It’s kind of pathetic, just a new oddball idea,” said
Patsy Fritz, a former county planning commissioner and an outspoken Lilac Hills
critic. “He’s just trying to keep the flame alive. It’s not smoke and mirrors,
its more like sparklers and razzle-dazzle. Randy Goodson is quite a super
salesman.”
Goodson said that he and 5D Robotics have been working
together for awhile and are also developing a robotics system for a residential
project he is planning in Boulder, Colo.
“This is the future,” Goodson said, during Thursday’s
demonstration. He said the system at Lilac Hills Ranch would be built during
the first phase of construction and continue during the 10-year build-out
process.
“We’re paying for installing this in the community,” he
said. “The (Homeowner’s Association) will have to pay for the operations and
maintenance. These are intended to replace vehicle trips. While there’s a
slight increase in the HOA fee, residents will be able to come home from work
and park their vehicle and they won’t have to get into it until they go back to
work.”
Goodson said the “location tags” that will be built into
light poles make sure robots go only where they should.
“The 5D technology controls where they can go within one
centimeter of accuracy and it has sensors that prevent it from running over
anybody or anything,” Goodson said.
Whether Lilac Hills Ranch will become a reality still
remains to be seen. The neighborhood would be built half way between Temecula
and Escondido, about a half mile east of Interstate 15 and south of W. Lilac
Road, on 608 acres of mostly farmland. Under the county’s updated General Plan,
the area is zoned for only 110 homes.
The General Plan encourages the creation of walkable
communities, but in already urban areas near existing infrastructure. The Board
of Supervisors will hold a hearing — potentially as soon as Oct. 28 — to decide
whether to grant Accretive an amendment that would allow the development to
proceed.
Opponents of Lilac Hills Ranch say the design of the
project is fine, but its location makes a mockery of the General Plan. They say
if the supervisors approve the amendment it could be a harbinger of similar
types of big backcountry development.
The county’s Planning Commission last month voted 4-3 to
recommend approval of the project.
Bruemmer said he’s pleased to partner with Goodson, a
developer “who sees the value of bringing smart mobility technology to the
people in their community.”
He said the robots solve the “first and last mile of
transit problem,” which he described as the hesitancy of people to take alternative
and public transportation if they have to drive a ways to get to that
transportation.
For instance, he said, people who have to drive a mile to
get to a Park & Ride often will just keep driving all the way to work.
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