From Tuesday’s Grass Valley City Council Agenda:
In the effort to settle a law suit between the City, Loma Rica Ranch and the Nevada County Airport Land Use Commission settlement negotiations were entered into between the parties. One of the stipulations in the settlement agreement requires the City to overrule the Airport Land Use Commission determination of inconsistency between the Nevada County Airport Land Use Compatibility Plan and the Loma Rica Ranch Specific Plan.
State law requires the City to make specific findings and follow several steps as part of the overrule process. The Council must first review the proposed findings and decision, and forward those findings to Caltrans Division of Aeronautics and Nevada County Airport Land Use Commission for a 30-day review.
The City is required to submit the findings to those agencies at least 45 days before the City adopts the findings at a formal public hearing. It is anticipated that the public hearing will be held on September 11, 2012. The findings affect only a small area of the overall plan within the Lakes Neighborhood.
The proposed Resolution provides for the submission of proposed findings and decision to overrule the Nevada County Airport Land Use Commission’s determination as it pertains to the Loma Rica Ranch Specific Plan to the appropriate agencies pursuant to Public Utilities Code Sections 21676 and 21676.5. The final findings may be modified based comments received by the City from the other agencies and the comments will be part of the public hearing record.
*In addition, “The Council will open the public hearings to consider removal of a condition that requires a certain number of affordable housing units , take testimony, then close the hearings on agenda items 6,7, and8 at the same time. The Council will then take action on each item independently.
“Open and close the public hearing, find that there are unforeseen hardships because of the economic conditions and subsequent effect on the housing market …”
Like Nevada City, Grass Valley is proceeding with plans to put a sales-tax hike initiative on the November ballot.
The agenda is here.
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I’m looking forward to hearing the explanation on the affordable housing part. On the surface, of course, removing the affordable housing requirements when the economy is at its worst, seems exactly opposite of what would be helpful to prospective owners and renters. On the surface, of course, it would seem to be another simple act of desperation by the city, to bend over backwards to appease the developers. There must be more to it than that. How many housing units are already approved-but-not-yet-started in the county? What prompted these agenda items – was it something that NCCA asked the city to do, or, was it something the city did voluntarily to sweeten the deal? On the surface, it appears that desperation trumps all, and that doesn’t seem like a terribly forward-thinking way to run a city. More explanation please.
That’s what I am thinking as well. Consider the ambiguity that if you remove the affordable housing component then all that would be left would be unaffordable housing. There is a huge inventory of of foreclosures in this county that the banks are sitting on for fear of collapsing the housing economy. How does one compete with that??