Eight years for 41 homes

A planning commissioner in the Tri Valley, one of the better ones I've seen, remarked in a planning commission hearing a few months ago, that this project was the first project he looked at when he was appointed and now it's the last project he's looking at before he terms out, eight years later. There has been so much tension and fighting between the developer and NIMBYs that it has taken eight years to get this otherwise straightforward project approved. He also remarked that the developers have given huge compromises to the opposition while the opposition hasn't given an inch.

The project started off in architecture in 2011, with the intent to build 78 homes between 2300 and 3200 square feet on a slight knoll, overlooking the valley.

Immediately, the community in the area came out of the woodwork with complaints.

• It's too dense! - it's less dense than the surrounding community.
• We loved walking up the hill to watch the fireworks! - this has always been private property, they were actually trespassing.
• This should be designated open space! - this has been zoned for development since the 1970s.

But the city listened to this small vocal minority of the city and demanded changes. Reduce the number of houses. So we did and the houses grew to 2500 to 3300 square feet, to make up for the loss of units and to fill the larger lots that were required. Make the rears of the houses prettier. So we added detail, articulation, and expensive stone veneer on the rears as well. Build a bridge over the creek for an evacuation lane. So our clients did, even though building the bridge would involve the Army Corps of Engineers and delay the project by over a year. There were other site related issues like trail connections and such we also had to conform with.

Two years later, the project is brought before planning commission again and it actually passed to city council, where they were swarmed with the residents again who were more organized. They began to argue that the Environmental Impact Report was flawed (which tends to be the automatic development delay tactic) and brought a resident biologist to the hearings. The same issues as before were brought up again. They made such a ruckus that city council voted the project down and told the planning commission that in no uncertain terms, they do not want to see the project come forward again.

But the developers had the legal right to develop the land. And they weren't going to just eat the loss of purchasing the land. They're not a national developer with ultra-deep pockets; eating this as a loss would nearly ruin them. So they pressed on. The city planners were now stuck between a rock and a hard place. The city council clearly doesn't want this headache presented to them again. And yet, they had a legal obligation to assist the developers.

So their solution was to throw every road block they could think of at them. They reduced the number of houses that could be built. They dug into the record books for an old floor area ratio requirement that reduced the square footage they could build. They introduced an average rear yard setback that was considerably more restrictive than before. Essentially, we had to redesign the project. Again.

After another few years and murmurs of lawyers and lawsuits, several more redesigns of the site and architecture, going back and forth and back again, millions of dollars down the toilet, the project was finally approved to move forward. Finally, it will be smooth sailing through building permits.

Ha. Just kidding. The opponents filed a CEQA lawsuit against the project to delay it further.