Loma Rica Ranch will become a “model foothills development” and it could “even get a ball field,” The Union is reporting, pointing to an expected 5-0 vote for the project late Wednesday by the Grass Valley City Council.
I wonder, though, if it also might face a big, fat lawsuit to stop the project as it gets further scrutinized.
The City Council had a chance to pass the project the first time around but balked. Some of the opposition centered around “leakage” of retail from downtown to the new project — an unfortunate and myopic focus.
Since then, the “smart” housing project is, well, less smart, opponents have argued. They point to the loss of a horse park as one example.
Now, however, the city could really use some revenue, and the contractor’s association could really use some jobs.
But the same opposition to the project exists. I was hopeful that the “growth vs. no growth” contingent could reach a compromise the first time around, when Phil Carville ran the project.
But no such luck: Now we’re back to the more traditional polarized state of affairs, with the same personalities involved.
This will become more apparent after an application is submitted to Nevada County’s Local Area Formation Commission (or LAFCO). Stay tuned.
The more things change, the more they stay the same.
Filed under: Uncategorized
Carville’s concept was based on mixed use, a village section, and lots of open space. The new one has 600 of the 700 hundred dwellings as single family homes. Subtracting some open space and room for roads, etc. the development becomes a cookie cutter small parcel single dwelling sprawl development. It is a far cry from the project we debated for years.
The “new” project is crap. My bet… this gets stopped at the ballot box in the near future.
We can only hope that we can stop it. This is a bad project at a time when we already have a soft housing market. The few bones the developers are willing to toss in to try to make it palatible, like a ball field, are no mitigation to the pollution sprawl, and general misery this project will bring to the surrounding community. Of course the developers And contractors will never have to live with their consequences. Doesn’t this community suffer enough from short-sighted development?
In this market, if they build it will they really come? If I’m looking for a comfy retirement, Western Nevada County is losing its “quaint”. It started with Burger Basin and Pineless Creek. Loma Rica is just another reason not to want to live here. All the noise and traffic with none of the benefits and services of living in a real urban environment make Grass Valley a worsening choice. And how about being stone’s throw from IMM? I could go on but if you actually live here, you already know.
Kudos to Joe Heckel for raising the issues of:
a) affordable housing (no formal set asides, so there will be none unless there is some R-3 zoning which leads to high density and – maybe – affordable housing – the “market solution”);
b) second units that will add to air pollution and traffic impacts but were exempt from analysis by the EIR and therefore, exempt from having the developer mitigate those additional impacts;
c) non-compliance with AB 32, etc.
****
Interesting argument re: AB 32. Essentially, the project fails miserably but the mitigations offered make it fail less miserably, so therefore it meets the intent of AB32 of “reducing global warming”! Very creative!
****
A random group of citizens?
Amazing coincidence that the first 10-15 speakers loved the project but wanted a ball field, then the next 10 were contractors who loved the project because they will all be working again!
…as long as they:
- are the lowest bid (no local preference)
- have adequate insurance (in the past, an insurance agent/Council member said that typically local contractors don’t have insurance to build more than 10 houses per year.
- are otherwise “qualified”
****
Meanwhile, projects in the Sacramento region are going forward with “net zero” energy impacts.
Grass Valley welcomes the 20th Century growth model!
Terri,
I would welcome this project as long as the following things are adhered to:
1. They use only local contractors who use only local products.
This would include locally grown tree’s which of course will be ethically harvested (which means that the trees have to die on their own and are then turned into wood products), locally produced roofing materials, locally made nails, locally mined and refined copper (for the plumbing and wiring components). Locally made cement for the concrete, and so on, and so on, and so on……
As long as this project is not another eyesore like Morgan Ranch I’m OK with it, but I would like to see some open space.
We all hate getting up in the morning and looking out the kitchen windows, and seeing that our neighbors are cooking egg’s too!
Morgan Ranch provides a unique Nevada County ecosystem for personages unable to adapt to the Victorian money pit zeitgeist.
I think it works well on the northern edge of Ridge Road. In Brunswick, maybe not so much.