Good evening Planning Commissioners,
As reflected in the project title change, the county has now acknowledged that this project has become the very first development project under the updated Salida Community Plan, SCP for short. Our community plan was a 2007 initiative that Salida voters were supposed to get to vote on, but it was pulled off the ballot and passed by three county supervisors, including our supervisor at the time, Jeff Grover. If you ask anyone who lived in Salida in 2007 who planned to vote on the initiative, most will express resentment that their vote was taken away from them, including other residents right here in this room.
I was one of them. I barely paid any attention to local politics until Modesto moved to annex Salida in 2012. But I did plan to vote no on the SCP – Salida Now as it was called then, because 2007 was the start of the recession and I had neighbors who couldn't sell their homes so why did we need a development plan that included 5,000 new homes to compete against?
In
about 2014, I printed off and read the entire SCP, and I have now
come to appreciate certain aspects of it. For instance, page 4 of
Exhibit B item E states “Ensuring
that the Salida Community Plan Amendment Area is in HARMONY
with existing communities.”
I met with Baldev “Paul” Grewal on April 3, 2021 and I
gave him a list of 4 things that would help his project: 1. Will the
gas station close at night? He asked me if the pumps could stay on
and I said he needed to ask the neighborhood. 2. Safety – crime,
gas, hydrogen. - Now I don't know why this project was approved when
the project next to it was denied based on not having enough water
for fire suppression because Vizcaya's well is shut down for being
over the limit in arsenic. There's much more about water supply
requirements in the SCP ordinance but that's for county counsel and
staff to review as reading and adhering to the SCP is way above what
they pay you to be here tonight. As for hydrogen, there has not been
any communication or community education on the safety of hydrogen
fuel. The closest hydrogen station to us is at Harris Ranch so
there's nothing in this county to base experience or policy on. And
as for crime, the security detail proposed in the project is for the
storage units and not for the 24-hour convenience store. Third – a
Community Facilities District which the Salida Community Plan states
on Article II, Section 2.09 “Funding Districts. Prior to the
recordation of any final map, the Applicant filing such map shall
petition County to form (or annex into, as applicable) community
facilities districts or other such financing districts solely
burdening the applicable portion of the Project Site." But I do not
see any mention of this CFD in the Planning document that is part of
this passed initiative. And lastly, I asked Paul to put it in writing
which obviously, none of it is, or it would be in the Conditions for
Approval. So I feel this lack of harmony shown towards Vizcaya and
the Community of Salida is setting this project up to be another
Larsa Hall or Fruit Yard. The County is a complaint driven system
after all, and it would be so much easier if the applicant would meet
with the community BEFORE
one spade of dirt is overturned since they will be suffering the
ramifications of this destined to be torn down gas station.
This
plan should have gone back to Salida MAC after planning dept changed
the title because these and other questions as pertains to the plan
should be addressed ahead of time. The two previous MAC members who had conflicts – one a real estate agent that works for the company representing the land, and the other who works for the county which stands to benefit from a 200% discount on a drainage basin, should have conflicted themselves out. The county employee has since
resigned from MAC and two seats were filled in January. If it had
gone back to MAC now, then a legitimate vote could have been taken
and not this nonsense of split votes by conflicted members. One of
you even cited that the MAC vote weighs heavily on their decision
about the project, so I hope you will take these biased machinations
into consideration because the request was denied that the project be
taken back to the MAC BEFORE the planning commission meeting. It is
now slated to go to MAC next week, so any vote they make will not be
heard tonight by you. What should have happened is it went to the MAC
next week, then went to Planning Commission's March 3rd
meeting. Because when it comes down to it, who stands to gain the
most from this project besides the landowners? The county does. The
county gets their discount basin and the county gets the tax revenue
from the development. And the county has scheduled the votes in their
favor for you to not to consider an un-conflicted MAC vote.
The
SCP has a provision for the Board of Supervisors to consider a range
of land uses intended to allow flexibility, but that loophole does
NOT preclude the applicants from the SCP fee in Exhibit A page 10
section 21.66.110 nor the aforementioned CFD. In fact, Exhibit B item
17A states “adopting
this Ordinance without alteration.”
and just below that in Section B item 1. “This
initiative will protect the quality of life of the County's citizens
by Discouraging sprawl by locating a mix of land uses adjacent to
existing communities.”
And in Exhibit B, section D “Approval
of this initiative does not constitute a part of, or encourage,
piecemeal conversion of a larger agricultural area to
non-agricultural uses.”
Simply put, I ask you to put yourself in the shoes of residents of
the Vizcaya neighborhood. Would you want a gas station less than 500
feet from your un-gated neighborhood? Would you want flammable
materials less than 500 ft from your house when water suppression
could be an issue because your well is shut down? I was reminded of
this again when American Recycling burned this week and they had
water suppression issues. How does anything about this gas station
improve the quality of life and harmony of the community?
