General Plan, zoning on Council’s agenda

At the first City Council meeting of the new year, this Wednesday at 7 p.m., members will weigh in on General Plan and zoning variances for a rental housing development entitled Cascara Canyon, a “tax-sharing” agreement designed to entice Golden Gate Petroleum back to Martinez and a lease renewal for the City’s Corporation Yard.

The proposed Cascara Canyon development, a 46-unit apartment complex on Shell Avenue and one custom home, got a resolute thumbs down from the Planning Commission in November, and the Commission underscored its objection in December by adding more assertive and specific language in a recommendation that the City Council also reject the application, emphasizing Commissioners’ deep disapproval of the traffic study City staff used to support the significant variances required for development’s current version.

Approved by the City as a townhouse development of 20 units and one custom home in 2006, Alamo-based developer Bill Schrader halted the project in 2008 when the housing market foundered. Last March, a new plan was submitted for the City’s consideration — now more than twice the size. The builders of Cascara Canyon are asking the City for exceptions to established zoning, height and density rules in order to build two 23-unit, three-story apartment complexes and one custom home on a 5.6 acre parcel of vacant land between 756-760 Shell Avenue — the La Salle Manor Apartments — and Alhambra Terrace, the site of the County’s Housing Authority apartments.

All of 46 multi-family units — 34 one-bedroom and 12 two-bedroom — are planned to be built on 1.6 acres of the parcel, a density of 29 units per acre. The current Central Martinez Specific Area Plan calls for just 10-12 units per acre.

The remaining four acres are slated for one custom home, said City Planner Corey Simon, of which a quarter of an acre would be building site and the remaining acreage to be designated as open space.

In early December, a loan default notice was posted on the site announcing the property would be up for auction on Dec. 21, according to Planning Commissioner Harriett Burt, who had heard about the notice from a neighbor and visited the site to verify.

In a telephone interview on Monday, Schrader said the loan default notice was a mistake and consultants working for Wells Fargo returned the next day to remove the notice.

“That’s the problem with Well [Fargo] right now, they have so many loans, so many problems with this kind of stuff. This loan is not [in] default,” Schrader said.

Schrader stressed that Cascara Canyon would be the fifth housing development built by his company since 2002. He said he was responsible for the last five homes built in the Brittany Hills neighborhood, Santos Ranch I and II and 1111 Haven Street, 12 townhouses built on the former DMV site, which was “very controversial,” according to Schrader. He said the Cascara Canyon project would be “very similar” to the 1111 Haven Street development, as the same architect designed both projects.