Gov't
Group declares war
on Yuba Highlands
MARYSVILLE (2/25/03) -- The Yuba Highlands housing project is out-sized, impractical, unneeded and dangerous, opponents mapping out ways to stop the plan said Monday.
Developers envision a 2,900-acre tract of 5,100 homes with an ultimate population of 13,000 people, which would make it larger than Marysville, the county seat.
The Highlands would be located between Beale Air Force Base, Camp Far West, the Spenceville Wildlife and Recreational Area and Penn Valley in Nevada County, said Jana Walsh, a Wheatland horse-breeder who helped found Yuba Citizens Against Poor Planning to battle the project.
Moreover, just below the surface of those lands lies an unknown quantity of unexploded ordnance leftover from when the area served as a bombing range in World War II, state and federal officials warned.
Efforts to remove the aging shells and bombs are underway, but it may take until the end of the century to finish, officials told the 50 concerned homeowners meeting on Highlands project.
The Department of Defense has estimated it will take $80 billion to complete the clean, but only $212 million has been earmarked for the job for the coming year, according to Terry Vincent, a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers project manager overseeing the Beale restoration project.
"You do the math: $80 billion at $200 million a year -- it'll take 90 years to do it. We'll be here for decades," Vincent assured YCAPP attendees.
Some county officials wish to halt the Highlands, among them Yuba Supervisor Hal Stocker, who represents the district in which he project resides/
"It's miles from anywhere. No roads, no sewers, no power, no infrastructure. All of that would have to be put in," said Stocker, in whose district Highlands would lie.
Furthermore, the county does not need the Highlands to handle growth, Stocker said
Two other major specific development plans are already on the board: Lake Plumas, designed to accommodate 36,000 new residents and East Linda, which would serve 20,000.
Putting all three together would roughly double the county's current population of 62,000. "We don't need 62,000 more people in the county," Stocker said.
Stocker dismissed claims that the Highlands would add significantly to the county tax base and general fund.
State legislators long ago shaved the counties' share of property taxes from 40 percent to 19 percent, so new housing projects are not the boon to county budgets they once were, Stocker said.
All in all, the Yuba Highlands project is "not smart planning," Stocker summed up.
But if the Highlands project is so ill-advised and so unrewarding, who is backing it?
Developers and speculators "out to make a killing," said Carolyn Hinshaw, a Grass Valley resident and chapter president of the local Sierra Club who joined with Walsh to start YCAPP.
The project's draft environmental impact report is due in March. It should suggest tools and tactics for stopping the projects, said Lenny Seigel, a Bay Area planning activist said.
A key ally YCAPP might court is the Department of Defense, which is itself worried about urban encroachment forcing military base closures, said Seigel.
"Sprawl is the common enemy," Seigel said.
Beale AFB is a major area employer and closure for whatever reason would doom the local economy, financial experts recently reported to the Yuba-Sutter Economic Development Corp.
Group declares war
on Yuba Highlands
MARYSVILLE (2/25/03) -- The Yuba Highlands housing project is out-sized, impractical, unneeded and dangerous, opponents mapping out ways to stop the plan said Monday.
Developers envision a 2,900-acre tract of 5,100 homes with an ultimate population of 13,000 people, which would make it larger than Marysville, the county seat.
The Highlands would be located between Beale Air Force Base, Camp Far West, the Spenceville Wildlife and Recreational Area and Penn Valley in Nevada County, said Jana Walsh, a Wheatland horse-breeder who helped found Yuba Citizens Against Poor Planning to battle the project.
Moreover, just below the surface of those lands lies an unknown quantity of unexploded ordnance leftover from when the area served as a bombing range in World War II, state and federal officials warned.
Efforts to remove the aging shells and bombs are underway, but it may take until the end of the century to finish, officials told the 50 concerned homeowners meeting on Highlands project.
The Department of Defense has estimated it will take $80 billion to complete the clean, but only $212 million has been earmarked for the job for the coming year, according to Terry Vincent, a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers project manager overseeing the Beale restoration project.
"You do the math: $80 billion at $200 million a year -- it'll take 90 years to do it. We'll be here for decades," Vincent assured YCAPP attendees.
Some county officials wish to halt the Highlands, among them Yuba Supervisor Hal Stocker, who represents the district in which he project resides/
"It's miles from anywhere. No roads, no sewers, no power, no infrastructure. All of that would have to be put in," said Stocker, in whose district Highlands would lie.
Furthermore, the county does not need the Highlands to handle growth, Stocker said
Two other major specific development plans are already on the board: Lake Plumas, designed to accommodate 36,000 new residents and East Linda, which would serve 20,000.
Putting all three together would roughly double the county's current population of 62,000. "We don't need 62,000 more people in the county," Stocker said.
Stocker dismissed claims that the Highlands would add significantly to the county tax base and general fund.
State legislators long ago shaved the counties' share of property taxes from 40 percent to 19 percent, so new housing projects are not the boon to county budgets they once were, Stocker said.
All in all, the Yuba Highlands project is "not smart planning," Stocker summed up.
But if the Highlands project is so ill-advised and so unrewarding, who is backing it?
Developers and speculators "out to make a killing," said Carolyn Hinshaw, a Grass Valley resident and chapter president of the local Sierra Club who joined with Walsh to start YCAPP.
The project's draft environmental impact report is due in March. It should suggest tools and tactics for stopping the projects, said Lenny Seigel, a Bay Area planning activist said.
A key ally YCAPP might court is the Department of Defense, which is itself worried about urban encroachment forcing military base closures, said Seigel.
"Sprawl is the common enemy," Seigel said.
Beale AFB is a major area employer and closure for whatever reason would doom the local economy, financial experts recently reported to the Yuba-Sutter Economic Development Corp.
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