Yuba supervisors brush off critics,
OK EIR prep for big development
Sac Bee Excloo
MARYSVILLE 9/17/02 (YSN) - Ignoring critics, the Yuba County supervisors voted, 4-1, Tuesday to prepare an environmental impact report for a 5,100-unit housing development in the lower foothills on the eastern edge of Beale Air Force Base.
Yuba Highlands would be located on 2,900 acres eight miles east of Marysville in the rolling hills south of Hammonton-Smartsville Road. It would have homes, parks, a golf course, along with retail, office commercial and industrial uses.
With a projected population of 13,000 residents, it would be roughly equal in size to Marysville, which has 11,600 residents, Yuba County Principal Planner Pete Calarco said.
The favorable vote Tuesday OK'd two agreements. One retained Pacific Municipal Consulting of Sacramento to prepare the EIR. The other accepted $196,000 from project developer Yuba Foothills Development to pay for it.
This triplex arrangement allows the county to separate the developer from the EIR author, all the better to preserve the report's impartiality, County Counsel Dan Montgomery said.
Supervisors had previously approved two other large scale specific plans: one for East Linda, which calls for 6,000 housing units, and another for the Plumas Lake area, which calls for 12,000 housing units.
Together, the three would add 67,000 to the county population over the next 10 to 20 years, more than doubling the present population of 60,000.
Don Bennett of Smartsville supported the plan, saying the bare land now there produced little in the way of tax revenues for the county and was therefore of "no value." Others foothill residents praised the plan because it would bring health services and shopping facilities closer.
Supervisor Hal Stocker, who cast the lone 'no' vote, tried unsuccessfully to get the board to delay the EIR for time to update the county general plan. The current plan passed in 1996 never fully addressed issues of open space, Stocker contended
:Stocker alleged the multiple "new towns" would drive the county's growth rate to eight percent per year, roughly four times greater than the rate preferred in other counties, according to Stocker. "That's unheard of," he said.
Calarco disputed Stocker's growth rate estimate. "The general plan calls for 2 percent," he said.
The day before the vote Stocker informally surveyed planners in surrounding counties, including Placer, Yolo, Sacramento, Butte, Nevada, Sierra to get their thinking on "new towns."
"They're a no-no," Stocker summarized
"This is supposed to be a tourist county. Tourists don't come here to see housing developments. The question is, 'How much growth do we really want?" Stocker said.
Representatives from the Grass Valley-Nevada City chapters of the Sierra Club and Audobon Society expressed concerns about possible impacts the town-size development might have on the Spenceville Wildlife Area and fire protection needs in adjacent Nevada County areas.
Others said they were concerned because portions of the development overlapped a former bombing range where federal authorities are conducting a long-term program to remove unexploded ordnance.
Such issues would be addressed at "scoping sessions" to be held while the EIR is being prepared, Chairman Al Amaro said,
Those sessions should begin in about two months, with the whole draft EIR expected to be completed by next spring, Calarco said.
OK EIR prep for big development
Sac Bee Excloo
MARYSVILLE 9/17/02 (YSN) - Ignoring critics, the Yuba County supervisors voted, 4-1, Tuesday to prepare an environmental impact report for a 5,100-unit housing development in the lower foothills on the eastern edge of Beale Air Force Base.
Yuba Highlands would be located on 2,900 acres eight miles east of Marysville in the rolling hills south of Hammonton-Smartsville Road. It would have homes, parks, a golf course, along with retail, office commercial and industrial uses.
With a projected population of 13,000 residents, it would be roughly equal in size to Marysville, which has 11,600 residents, Yuba County Principal Planner Pete Calarco said.
The favorable vote Tuesday OK'd two agreements. One retained Pacific Municipal Consulting of Sacramento to prepare the EIR. The other accepted $196,000 from project developer Yuba Foothills Development to pay for it.
This triplex arrangement allows the county to separate the developer from the EIR author, all the better to preserve the report's impartiality, County Counsel Dan Montgomery said.
Supervisors had previously approved two other large scale specific plans: one for East Linda, which calls for 6,000 housing units, and another for the Plumas Lake area, which calls for 12,000 housing units.
Together, the three would add 67,000 to the county population over the next 10 to 20 years, more than doubling the present population of 60,000.
Don Bennett of Smartsville supported the plan, saying the bare land now there produced little in the way of tax revenues for the county and was therefore of "no value." Others foothill residents praised the plan because it would bring health services and shopping facilities closer.
Supervisor Hal Stocker, who cast the lone 'no' vote, tried unsuccessfully to get the board to delay the EIR for time to update the county general plan. The current plan passed in 1996 never fully addressed issues of open space, Stocker contended
:Stocker alleged the multiple "new towns" would drive the county's growth rate to eight percent per year, roughly four times greater than the rate preferred in other counties, according to Stocker. "That's unheard of," he said.
Calarco disputed Stocker's growth rate estimate. "The general plan calls for 2 percent," he said.
The day before the vote Stocker informally surveyed planners in surrounding counties, including Placer, Yolo, Sacramento, Butte, Nevada, Sierra to get their thinking on "new towns."
"They're a no-no," Stocker summarized
"This is supposed to be a tourist county. Tourists don't come here to see housing developments. The question is, 'How much growth do we really want?" Stocker said.
Representatives from the Grass Valley-Nevada City chapters of the Sierra Club and Audobon Society expressed concerns about possible impacts the town-size development might have on the Spenceville Wildlife Area and fire protection needs in adjacent Nevada County areas.
Others said they were concerned because portions of the development overlapped a former bombing range where federal authorities are conducting a long-term program to remove unexploded ordnance.
Such issues would be addressed at "scoping sessions" to be held while the EIR is being prepared, Chairman Al Amaro said,
Those sessions should begin in about two months, with the whole draft EIR expected to be completed by next spring, Calarco said.
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