Lucas Valley developers appeal county environmental hurdle

The developers seeking to build 36 homes in Lucas Valley have appealed a Marin County Planning Commission requirement that they pay for additional environmental analysis of the project.

The appeal to the Marin County Board of Supervisors was filed by 330 Land Co. and Lucas Valley Road LLC on Dec. 15.

The developers have already received approval to build the homes on a 61-acre site at 1501 Lucas Valley Road. However, they still must secure permission to subdivide the property before they can move forward with construction.

The county and the developers signed a tolling agreement in July that extends the developers’ right to sue the county until 90 days after a final decision is rendered on the subdivision approval. Under California law, the developers must exhaust administrative remedies before suing.

Sarah Jones, director of the Marin County Community Development Agency, said it has asked the supervisors to take up the matter at their March 10 meeting.

Immanuel Bereket, the planner overseeing the application, said that under county code the supervisors must rule on the appeal no later than at their eighth regular meeting following its filing. The March 10 meeting would be the eighth.

The appeal focuses on the commission’s decision that more environmental analysis is required. It asserts that the scope of the analysis required exceeds California Environmental Quality Act mandates. The appeal also faults the county for seeking proposals to do the work from just one consultant, Sicular Environmental Consulting.

“Their initial position was that they would only move forward with a single consultant whose scope of work was extremely excessive in our minds in terms of both the scope of work proposed as well as the costs,” said Travis Brooks, an attorney representing 330 Land Co. and Lucas Valley Road LLC.

According to the appeal, Sicular estimated the review would require 184 hours of consultant time responding to public comments and take nine to 12 months to complete at a cost of $427,792. The appeal said this level of analysis was more typically associated with a full environmental impact report.

The developers also assert that a programmatic environmental impact report covering all 148 sites included in the county’s housing element should suffice. The 1501 Lucas Valley Road parcel is included in that inventory of preferred building sites, designated to accommodate 26 residences.

At the Planning Commission meeting on Dec. 8, Gregory Stepanicich, the chair, said, “It seems to me that there are potentially a number of health and safety concerns.”

Stepanicich, who represents the district where the homes would be built, said he was chiefly concerned about the plan to level the hills to create a flat building pad, instead of making the project conform to the topography.

The developers have asked the county to evaluate two grading plans. One calls for the removal of 128,900 cubic yards of soil, while the other would involve retaining walls up to 15 feet high.

Before a previous commission hearing on the project, Neil Sorensen, a Lucas Valley resident, wrote in an email: “This is a project that will carve away an entire hillside and require as many as 13,000 truck trips up and down Lucas Valley Road just to haul the dirt away. The project would have sub-standard streets, drainage issues, and potentially life threatening issues if there is ever a fire.”

As for the developers’ complaint about seeking a proposal from a single consultant, Jones said: “Although it will add time and cause a delay in initiating the environmental review, we are proceeding with soliciting further bids.”

Bereket said, “We are seeking bids from other firms besides Sicular. We initiated this process before an appeal petition was submitted to the board.”

Brooks said he hadn’t been informed of that decision and declined to comment on what if any effect it would have on the appeal.

The appeal also questions the Community Development Agency’s determination that the project fails to qualify for streamlined review under Senate Bill 131. The law, approved last year, mandates streamlined environmental review of housing projects that fail to qualify for a California Environmental Quality Act exemption under another law, Assembly Bill 130, due to just one condition.

“Our concern is that where jurisdictions have recognized they may not be able to disapprove a housing development project on substantive grounds they are dragging out projects in terms of delay and costs,” Brooks said. “That’s really why we felt we needed to appeal, because to this point the scope has been completely excessive.”