Council to debate development of 112 homes in Forest Hills

MONDAY — A planned subdivision of 112 single-family homes in Martinez’s Forest Hills neighborhood — at Wildcroft Drive — will gain momentum again if the City Council votes to sign a new agreement with the project’s Texas-based developers, Richfield Investment Corporation, at Wednesday’s meeting.

Item  number 4 on the Consent Calendar, concerning the housing development known as ‘Alhambra Highlands,’  was originally approved by the City in 1990. According to Assistant City Attorney, Veronica Nebb, the Alhambra Highlands Project is included in the Alhambra Hills Specific Plan, which the City adopted in 1987.

When the housing market soured in the early 1990s, Richfield began requesting, and the City granted, numerous extensions on the development, and ultimately the corporation tabled their plans, particularly after the California Department of Fish and Game got involved, according to Mayor Rob Schroder. Part of the subdivision’s acreage was found to be habitat of the threatened Alameda whipsnake and designated open space.

Now the developer is indicating renewed interest in building,  and the City is expected to sign an agreement promising to take another look at the project.

“The project has been languishing for years and years, and now that [Richfield] wants to push ahead, we basically told them [the plans are] so old, we need to take another look at this,” Schroder said yesterday. He indicated that Council member Janet Kennedy was on the Planning Commission at the time of the initial approval of Alhambra Highlands. “The agreement [on this week’s agenda stipulates Richfield] is not going to sue us and we won’t sue them,” while the entitlement process is reactivated, said Schroder.

The Council is also expected to sign a Letter of Intent indicating its unanimous support for a proposal brought forth by Planning Commissioner Rachel Ford. At the Sept. 23 City Council meeting, Ford revealed her notions for the creation of the Delta Research Institute, a scientific research facility, using one of the buildings and acreage of the former Zocchi property, directly across from the Amtrak station.

“At this point [the proposed Institute] is in the conceptual stage,” said Ford on Monday. When asked about the suggested Institute’s management, Ford replied that first a board of directors would be selected, who in turn would decide administrative matters. Who would be on the board of directors of such a facility? “We are not making that public…the letter of intent enables me to go forward [in securing] bigger funding sources.”

Ford referenced Nevada’s Desert Research Institute as one possible model for creating a similar research facility in Martinez, providing the infrastructure to assemble scientists studying the Delta Estuary.

“The [Letter of Intent] indicates we are interested in the concept, but it certainly doesn’t bind anyone,” Schroder said.

At the behest of Council member Lara DeLaney, the Council will also discuss whether the City should waive or defer development fees as an “incentive to encourage new construction or major rehabilitation projects in downtown,” according to Assistant City Manager Karen Majors.

Typically, development fees are deposited in separate accounts to financially support future capital projects.   In this instance, waiver of development fees means that no development fees are ever paid for a specific development project.  The city waiver of development fees ultimately requires General Fund dollars be used to replace the unpaid fees in the separate development fee supported capital accounts. Currently, the City permits development fees to be “deferred” to the “certificate of occupancy” or the close of escrow on residential projects on a case by case basis,” said Majors and Assistant City Attorney Nebb in a staff report dated Oct. 23. “Waiver and/or deferral of development fees is essentially a form of assistance for the purposes of economic development which is considered by cities from time to time. Before agreeing to provide any form of financial assistance to a private development project, the City should consider whether in a given case, the type of assistance contemplated would violate the prohibition against the City making a gift of public funds or trigger the requirement that prevailing wages be paid to workers working on the private development project.”

“I don’t think it’s the [development] fee that is keeping people from building things,” said Schroder.

Prior to the regular Council meeting at 7 p.m., the five members will meet with City staff in closed session to discuss litigation surrounding the proposed “Berrellesa Palms” housing development.

A group of Martinez residents, entitled the Martinez Fair and Responsible Growth Coalition, filed a lawsuit last month against the City, the project’s developer, Resources for Community Development (RCD), and the Earl D. and Joanne Dunivan Trust, property owners of the proposed building site, after the Planning Commission approved the project and the Council denied appeals to the approval of the planned 50-unit low-income senior housing development on a roughly one-acre parcel at 310 Berrellesa Avenue, prompting those opposed to the development to seek recourse in the judicial system..

The Coalition members filed a Petition for writ of mandamus in Contra Costa Superior Court, requesting  the Court order the City to “set aside and void its approval of the project and findings of exemptions and to comply with all provisions of [California Environmental Quality Act], planning and zoning laws….and to refrain from further consideration of the project until full compliance with is achieved, including preparation and certification of an EIR.”