Hollister
– After years of delays and litigation, Award Homes’ 677-unit
subdivision is moving forward.
Hollister – After years of delays and litigation, Award Homes’ 677-unit subdivision is moving forward.
At its meeting on Thursday, the Hollister Planning Commission will consider recommending that the City Council approve the project’s final environmental impact report.
City Planner Mary Paxton noted that the project still needs to clear several hurdles. But if the approval process goes smoothly, Paxton said, construction could begin when the city’s sewer hookup moratorium is lifted at the end of 2008.
The developer’s plans call for the construction of 517 single-family homes, 100 apartments and 60 “garden homes” – homes built at a higher density than normal single-family houses – on a 126-acre parcel west of Fairview Road and north of Airline Highway.
Santa Clara-based Award Homes has completed housing developments in Stockton, Soledad and elsewhere. A company representative did not return calls from the Free Lance on Tuesday.
Planning Commissioner David Huboi said he’s still studying the EIR, but he’s glad the developer plans to provide 20 percent of the homes at below-market rates. The apartments and garden homes, Huboi said, could also provide housing for members of the local workforce who can’t afford a house.
However, Huboi said he still has reservations about the project’s impact on the community.
“My concern is the schools and the traffic,” he said.
Huboi said the subdivision could lead to overcrowding both in local schools and on local roads.
Award Homes signed a development agreement with the City Council in October of 2000, but the project hit a speed bump when the Local Agency Formation Commission refused to annex the proposed development site into the City of Hollister. After two years of litigation, LAFCO agreed to allow the annexation, and Award Homes agreed to give the city additional funds and incentives, including $1 million for its general fund.
City Councilwoman Pauline Valdivia opposed the annexation in 2004, arguing that the city does not have the infrastructure to handle such a large development. She said Tuesday that her feelings about the project haven’t changed, and that she still has serious reservations about the traffic problems in particular.
“Highway 25 is the same, Highway 156 is the same and the traffic on Fairview Road is worse,” Valdivia said.
After repeatedly rejecting the developer’s plans and asking for more information, the city’s Planning Department deemed the project complete last September.
Paxton said that if the Planning Commission recommends approval of the EIR – a decision that must go before the City Council for a vote – the city will next consider the project’s tentative site map. Each of the project’s components, such as its apartments and its single-family homes, will also be subject to architectural and site review, Paxton said.
“We want to make sure the project implements (Hollister’s) general plan,” she said.
The EIR – a supplement to the West Fairview Specific Plan EIR developed in 1994 – states that all of the project’s impacts can be mitigated except for its traffic. The subdivison could lead to increased delays at the intersection of San Benito and Nash streets, San Benito and Fourth streets and along San Benito Street/San Felipe Road between Hillcrest Road and Highway 25, according to the report.
In order for the project to move forward, the City Council must decide that the project’s benefits override its environmental impacts.
Anthony Ha covers local government for the Free Lance. Reach him at 831-637-5566 ext. 330 or [email protected].
