Belvedere to appoint oversight committee to review sea wall report
Belvedere will enlist residents to serve on an advisory committee to review an environmental report on the city’s proposed $28 million sea wall project.
The City Council unanimously approved the formation of the committee at a meeting Monday. The committee will review the draft environmental report for construction impacts in September. It will provide comments that will be reviewed by the council and included in the report.
“We really do want to staff this committee with people with expertise and who really do live in impacted areas so they can see things we cannot,” Mayor Sally Wilkinson said.
The Protect Belvedere Project, as it is now known, is intended to strengthen sea walls, levees and utility lines against the threat of natural catastrophe, mostly along San Rafael Avenue and Beach Road. Construction is expected to begin after designs are finalized in the summer of 2023, pending voter approval.
The City Council voted unanimously in June to approve the resolution to place a measure on the November ballot that would establish a city charter in order to levy a real property transfer tax of 0.8% to fund the infrastructure plan.
As a general law city, Belvedere does not have the authority to levy that tax, and the city must convert to a charter city. The charter and the tax, which will be considered as one ballot measure, must be approved by a majority vote.
The city is still waiting for the result of grant applications to the federal government and state totaling about $42 million.
The draft environmental impact report will summarize findings related to noise, dust, traffic, and other short-term and long-term impacts of the work.
The committee will consist of no more than seven members, who will be selected by Wilkinson. The committee is expected to perform its review in three weeks and will be subject to state laws under the Brown Act governing public access and transparency.
City Manager Robert Zadnik said the committee would provide an opportunity for Belvedere residents to be influential in the review process while the potential project advances.
“The draft EIR is a very complex, long document,” Zadnik said. “Obviously there’s several areas of impacts.”
Community member Dr. William Rothman, a persistent critic of the proposed project, said he was “troubled by the creation of this committee” because he believed it was a ploy to rubber stamp the details without critical analysis.
“The whole thing stinks,” he said.
Others disagreed.
“I think that what the city is doing right now is in response to people’s concerns about the public being involved,” said community member Sandy Donnell during the public comment period.