Subject: April 10th Seeno and Planning Commission - not to be missed
Date: 2008-04-06
Attachment:Pittsburg Hills Decision - Your Turn - CCTimes20080404.pdf
Seeno Development update:
Per State law the Planning Commission needs to "make a report" on the map application to Council within 50 days of EIR Certification, and Council needs to set the hearing date within 30 days and approve or deny the application within another 30. So whatever Planning Commission does next week has to go to Council May 6th, and Council can render a decision then, May 20th, or June 3rd.
There's no mechanism in the Benicia Municipal Code (BMC) to require a development agreement. Instead, staff added conditions of approval for items beyond those specified in the BMC, such as a trail in the open space.
Please review the conditions of approval. I have been advised that if the record does not show the conditions that we "think" are appropriate, there is slim to no chance of a court upholding such requests. If you believe that an Intermodal Transportation Station is essential, then now is the time to put this in the record. Of course, there is the small problem of nexus - the connection between the condition and the project and without the EIR being clear on a miyiad of issues, it will be a test to see if what we need can withstand a potential Seeno's challenge.
A few facts:- 527.8 acre site
- 35 acres of freeway commercial
- 2.35 million square feet of industrial building space
- 857,000 square feet of commercial uses (remember, we do NOT have an ordinance that prohibits big box stores)
- 4,535 jobs (we now have about 7,000 workers)
- Two, 1 million gallon tanks (those are very big and can be seen on the hills in Pittsburg)
- approximately 4 million cubic yards of grading;
- Traffic impacts on East Second?
- Project street layout is for cars and does not establish a walkable development which is a general plan requirement; no metric on greenhouse gas emissions and thus no metric on how much and whether or not we can achieve by 2020 the AB32 mandated goals of greenhouse gases to our 1990 level - If the project did meet these goals, this would be a sustainable development which is also required by the Benicia General Plan.
- No plan for managing water courses and riparian habitat.
What is there to like? Reduction of industrial development from 4.44 million to 2.35 million square feet; inclusion of 100-200 foot buffers along drainages, swales and other wetlands; separated bike/pedestrian paths along through roads; bio-swales in parking lots and along roads; LEED design guidelines.
What would really help is to have the city staff provide an analysis of the new project submitted. Without an analysis, one is hard pressed to determine what impacts have been mitigated and how the project has met all the general plan goals, policies and use of programs.
The deadlines for taking action can be extended if the applicant and Council agree to extend the time limit. A simple minded person might think that denial of the project would be the easiest solution to the problem of meeting the statutory time frame above, so the community could take the time to ensure the new project has been analyzed sufficiently to ensure Benicia gets a first rate project that is consistent with our General Plan and has mitigated all the impacts to a level of insignificance. But we are advised that such simple minded thinking is ill advised because of potential litigation by Seeno. I have seen no written evidence of this, but this seems to be the conventional thinking. |
