UPDATE: HEARING POSTPONED to October 27, 7 p.m. — A public hearing before the Kern County Planning Commission regarding this development has been postponed. It was formerly set for September 8. It is now moved to October 27. The hearing is in the Board of Supervisors Chambers (first floor; 1115 Truxtun Avenue, Bakersfield; free parking in adjacent structure, across the street from Rabobank Center).
This story was published June 2, 2016.
By Patric Hedlund, TME
A thick pamphlet hit many Mountain Community mailboxes on the Friday just after school let out for summer vacation. Tejon Ranch Company is moving forward with its Grapevine housing project.
The packet features large pictures with few facts. They told of 10,000 to 12,000 homes to be built at the northern base of the Grapevine, south of the Tejon Ranch Industrial Complex. The photo above is one of the ‘concept’ images from the pamphlet.
The target market for the project is working people with families who can afford a modest condominium or apartment, with some single family homes. Grapevine is conceived as a place for warehouse and retail employees to live, those servicing distribution hubs for companies such as IKEA and Dollar General, along with workers for the Outlets at Tejon mall.
A clock is ticking for public comments
to Kern County, due by July 14
Kern County’s public comment period only lasts to July 14. Your questions and comments must go to the county—not the developer—to be counted and addressed. Impacts on water supply, traffic congestion, air pollution, Valley Fever spore exposure during construction and after, increased costs for law enforcement, social services, schools and medical needs, fire dangers, light pollution, impact on endangered species, the environment and other concerns should all be sent in writing to be received by Kern County before 5 p.m. of July 14.
The CEQA Process
This mandatory public participation process before a developer receives permits to build is outlined by the California Environmental Quality Act (referred to as CEQA—pronounced Seekwa).
The current public comment period will be followed by one or more public hearings.
CEQA requires Kern County to hire consultants (paid for by the developer) to prepare an extensive research document called a draft environmental impact report (referred to as the DEIR).
View the DEIR by clicking here
The DEIR for Grapevine was released this week. A notice about that is in the legal section of this week’s issue of The Mountain Enterprise on page 19.
The DEIR is supposed to outline the scope of the project and answer questions about its possible impacts on the health of the environment, wildlife and people.
Tejon Ranch’s DEIR for its luxury Tejon Mountain Village resort project (which features 4,500 homes to be built in critical habitat of the California condor) is thousands of pages long.
The DEIR for Tejon Ranch’s Grapevine project is over 2,500 pages. It shows 12,000 single and multi-family residences (with an additional 2,000 units possible) east and west of Interstate 5 at the Laval and Grapevine interchanges. It includes up to 5.1 million square feet of commercial/industrial development:
•1.2 million square feet of retail;
•2.45 million square feet of office/research and development space;
•1.45 million square feet of light industrial and warehouses;
•About 157 acres set aside for schools (including one high school and five K-8 schools);
•A minimum of 96 acres and up to 112 acres for parks;
•Fire stations, a sheriff’s substation, transit facilities/park-and-rides, plus water and wastewater treatment facilities.
CEQA comments can’t be ignored
By law, questions and concerns submitted by the public to Kern County during the CEQA public comment period cannot be ignored. They are gathered together in a public document which everyone can read and all questions must be addressed.
Mitigations
Serious concerns must be examined for mitigation. The developer must propose a way to eliminate or significantly reduce the dangers, damage and harm that may be caused by the development project, both during its construction phases and afterward.
Before the final environmental impact report can be adopted by the Kern County Board of Supervisors, mitigations must be made part of the plan.
Failure to do that, or saying “we want the board of supervisors to give us an ‘economic override’ because it is just too expensive to mitigate this problem,” may open the project to legal challenges through the courts.
There are several notes in Tejon Ranch Company’s expensive brochure that tell readers to contact them (the developer) with your questions and comments. If you do that, your questions, concerns and comments will not become part of the official CEQA record open to the public. There is no requirement that Tejon Ranch do anything with your comments to them to improve the project.
Lorelei Oviatt, Director of the Kern County Planning and Natural Resources Department confirmed the Grapevine DEIR is now available online. Click here to view the DEIR.
Members of the public can also review the research and recommended mitigations in the full DEIR document at the Frazier Park Library, in a notebook hard copy, or use a CD in the computer lab with the full document and the technical supplements.
No free lunch
In 2013 Valley Public Radio reported that Kern County Supervisor David Couch said of the newly-proposed Grapevine project: “You can look at it on its face and say ‘this is going to have an impact because you’re going to have an increase of property tax, an increase of sales tax, an increase in jobs available—and all those things are positive.
“The flipside of that is you get more traffic, more services being needed. It’s not a free lunch.”
Make your comment
Testimony at future public hearings and legal challenges may be limited to issues raised during this public review period.
Written comments must be submitted by mail or email. There is no online link for submitting comments.
You can email Kern County Planner Ross Fehrman at FehrmanR@co.kern.ca.us.
To send a letter, mail to:
Kern County Planning Dept. / Attn: Ross Fehrman, 2700 ‘M’ Street, Suite 100, Bakersfield, CA 93301.
Commenters who wish to receive an individual response to their letter must provide a return mailing address in their email or their letter.
Photo captions:
Tejon Ranch PR packets in local mailboxes show this image of a young couple in a modest neighborhood—with drought-free east coast lawns.
To see full stories with photos, please purchase a copy of the newspaper at many locations (click this link for a list) throughout the Mountain Communities.
Or, have your newspaper delivered via mail and include internet access. Just call 661-245-3794. Classified ads are FREE to paid subscribers! See front page at www.mountainenterprise.com for details.
The e-Edition is available now with full photos and stories at The Mountain Enterprise e-Edition. Select the 2016-06-03 edition.
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This is part of the June 3, 2016 online edition of The Mountain Enterprise.
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