How will the Stanislaus County Board of Supervisors vote on piecemeal development in Salida?

On Thursday, February 17, 2022, the Stanislaus County Planning Commission voted 4-2 to deny the proposed Salida gas station project. The primary reason cited was the planning department had bypassed the Salida Municipal Advisory Council (Salida MAC) when the project had changed in several ways. The project went back to Salida MAC and was voted against (5-0) on Tuesday, February 22, 2022. It now proceeds to the Board of Supervisors on Tuesday, March 15, 2022 at 6:30 pm. 

Now that the project title has changed to recognize this would be the first development project of the Salida Community Plan (SCP), I don't think the county realizes how encumbered this project will be by the SCP. The SCP was passed as an initiative; the county does NOT get to cherry-pick what they abide by in it. My comments below to the Planning Commission mention several of these articles in the initiative. 

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 3^rd 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?

Urban Limit Lines; the politics of invisible lines in the sand

Board members of the Municipal Advisory Councils (MACs) in Salida and Wood Colony, along with members of other local boards like Salida Sanitary District, etc. received letters from the City of Modesto dated June 9, 2020 requesting feedback about their proposed Urban Limit Lines (ULL). So far, the correspondence and social media postings in response to the letter have been a resounding "leave us alone" from Salida and Wood Colony residents.

First, just what is an Urban Limit Line? That's an invisible line in the sand (or in our case, prime agricultural soil called Hanford Sandy Loam) that would prevent the City of Modesto from land-grabbing upon the communities of Salida and Wood Colony. As most local area 

Modesto Bee map 
https://www.modbee.com/article237666634.html

residents know, Salida and Wood Colony have been fighting proposed annexations by Modesto for quite some time now.  Typically, a ULL would be met with open arms by our unincorporated communities for the protection they offer, so why is this one not?

Because the ULL does NOT match up to our communities' boundaries which means that Modesto would still have the opportunity to develop and sprawl into Salida and Wood Colony. 

Politicians in Modesto didn't just wake up one day and decide to implement the ULL, nor did they wake up and decide to go after Salida and Wood Colony once again - they are doing this for two reasons: former Modesto City Councilman, Denny Jackman and landowners in Salida and Wood Colony. 

Denny Jackman is perhaps the most well-known farmland preservationist in our county. He co-authored with former Modesto mayor, Garrad Marsh, Measure E - a county-wide residential ULL that was passed by voters in 2007. Denny then tried to repeat the success with a City of Modesto ULL initiative in 2015 known as Measure I. The Modesto Chamber of Commerce and local unions poured money into an anti-Measure I campaign and the initiative was narrowly defeated.

Denny is not one to give up so easily. To put it bluntly, he is threatening Modesto with another ULL ballot initiative if they did not implement a ULL on their own. The June 9 letter even says this but much more diplomatically: "Mr. Jackman informed the City Council that he intended to proceed with another attempt to impose the same limitations as he had pursued in 2015." But this new ULL is not exactly the same as the one in 2015. The ULL sacrifices much more of Wood Colony. Salida's lines are pretty much the same as 2015 but they do not follow Salida's Community Plan (SCP) boundaries. Why? On both counts: landowners.

Based on social media posts on NextDoor regarding this topic and a recent Wood Colony MAC meeting, it appears that Bill Lyons Jr. is affecting the boundaries in Wood Colony. He is the largest landowner there. For Salida, the main chunks of land cut out of our SCP boundaries is everything south of Kiernan and Joe Gallo's land north of Kiernan. Back during the Measure I initiative, (this was told to me by a Wood Colony friend) Denny ran into Dave Romano (who reps for Joe Gallo) and Dave told him they'd fight the initiative if the land wasn't removed from the ULL. That's why it's not a clean line north of Kiernan (west of Dale), even though all that land has been designated for Salida in the SCP with a Development Agreement signed by Mr. Romano. 

Back to the ULL and my thoughts: the Modesto City Council is in a rock and hard place trying to appease Denny and compromise with powerful families like Lyons and Gallo who want to sell their lands for commercial prices (much higher than ag prices). Additionally, while their lands are in areas designated for Salida and Wood Colony, the land cannot be developed unless City of Modesto agrees to supply water for new development. Historically for Salida, this has meant that Modesto will not supply the water unless they get to annex the land. (That's how Salida lost Costco and Kaiser from it's districts.)

I cannot see the residents of Salida and Wood Colony being on board for something that does not fully protect our communities from annexation. We can let the Modesto City Council know what we think of their invisible lines in the sand, but they don't have a history of listening to us since we are not constituents. However, their past votes have proven to be political campaign ammo and have killed re-election bids so I guess we'll see.

The Semantics of Sprawl

When you like new development, its called "growth". When you don't like it, its called "sprawl".

Where you really hear the word "sprawl" used a lot is in reference to the "urban sprawl" that has overtaken nearly all available open space in the San Francisco Bay Area and Southern California. "Sprawl" is not a word that I ever used in reference to cities or communities in Stanislaus County. Once you've seen how all the cities in the Los Angeles basin have sprawled together to where you cannot distinguish one city from the next, they make Stanislaus County look like a wilderness trek.

So when I heard Modesto City Councilman, Bill Zoslocki, use the term "county sprawl" during the June 2, 2015 (see video) Modesto City Council meeting, I was taken aback for a moment and then I laughed. The word "sprawl" uttered by a real estate developer/broker? Really? You're going to call something that puts the roof over your head a term that has a negative connotation? He works for Prudential Real Estate. So if someone comes to him with a project anywhere in the county, is Bill Zoslocki going to say, "No, I'm sorry, I can't represent you, that's just more county sprawl. No sprawl for me! I'm 110% against sprawl!"

Mr. Zoslocki is not the only one prone to uttering "county sprawl". His fellow council members, Garrad Marsh and John Lane Gunderson have both used the term "county sprawl" on numerous occasions. Councilman Gunderson posted about it on his Facebook wall and included maps in an effort to support his stance. The irony of the maps is that it really only shows how much sprawling that Modesto has done, not Stanislaus County. The yellow on the bottom map at left shows Modesto's annexations over the years. And there's A LOT of yellow!

Yet once again, the term "urban sprawl" raises is ugly head. Gene Richards, whom I met several months ago at MJC's MICL politics class, wrote a letter to the Modesto Bee recommending a no vote on Measure I. His flawed arguments include:

"But Wood Colony is not under siege. There is no law on the books that require farmers to give up their land – and the next generation might have different ideas. Wood Colony is excellent farm land – but Wood Colony is on a freeway. Freeways mean business." 

Wood Colony IS under siege. This is the second time in the last 20 years that the farmers of Wood Colony have had to fight off annexation by Modesto. Twenty years ago, their sons who were small children and are now grown, are farming their family farms. Just ask the Covers, the Heinrichs, the Wengers if they think the next generation will follow the last as they've done over the past 100 years. 

Richards acknowledges that "Wood Colony is excellent farm land" but tries to justify paving it over by chalking it up to "...the city fathers are trying to do is plan for the inevitable growth of Modesto." 

Yes, Modesto will inevitably grow, but it hasn't grown into Wood Colony in the last 145 years (since its founding) and it doesn't have to. The annexation attempt of 20 years ago was driven by politicians, developers, and Bill Lyons Jr. and nothing has changed between then and now. The overwhelming majority of the farmers in Wood Colony DON'T want to sell their land for development and it shouldn't be forced upon them by annexation. And there IS a law that will "...require farmers to give up their land". It's called eminent domain. At a meeting in early January 2014 with city leaders and staff, former Prudential Real Estate owner, Craig Lewis said, "We are going to have to eminent domain Beckwith". 

It should also be pointed out that Gene Richards wrote another letter in support of annexing Wood Colony to the Modesto Bee on January 11, 2014 that nullifies his own argument that farmers would not have to give up their land saying, "If the city annexes the land it wants, the area will not be developed for at least 10 or 15 years."

Richards additionally tries to rationalize the loss of prime farmland by replacing it with"...Tall buildings with hydroponic farming that produce six crops per year on a tenth of the water". First off, hydroponic farming is not what's being proposed to be built in Wood Colony. And if it were to be built, just how would tall buildings that use a tenth of the water be able to recharge the aquifer that lies under Wood Colony?

Simply put, Measure I takes the annexations of Wood Colony and Salida out of the hands of politicians and puts it into the hands of Modesto voters at the ballot box. If you're a Modesto voter, please support your neighbors in Wood Colony and Salida and vote "Yes on Measure I".