San Benito County supervisors this week gave the Leal Vineyards
owner 30 days to post a bond necessary for construction of a
left-turn lane off Fairview Road near the property, five months
after the planning commission in its initial approval of a use
permit was set to allow the business to forego the road work
required under an original agreement from 2004.
Supervisors in their decision Tuesday upheld an appeal
– to that same planning commission’s April decision – from a
neighbor who had complained about Leal Vineyards’ disregarding of
an array of requirements under the county’s agreement with the
business.
San Benito County supervisors this week gave the Leal Vineyards owner 30 days to post a bond necessary for construction of a left-turn lane off Fairview Road near the property, five months after the planning commission in its initial approval of a use permit was set to allow the business to forego the road work required under an original agreement from 2004.
Supervisors in their decision Tuesday upheld an appeal – to that same planning commission’s April decision – from a neighbor who had complained about Leal Vineyards’ disregarding of an array of requirements under the county’s agreement with the business.
The neighbor, Bill Lee, had appealed the planning commission’s decision while contending that owner Frank Leal had failed to comply with such matters as noise, fire-code and traffic issues. Those violations included often surpassing the county’s noise limit after a 10 p.m. curfew, lacking permits for structures on the property and a wine cave built in recent years, and the left-turn lane at Fairview Road and Maranatha Drive.
The planning commission’s move, and Lee’s appeal, had come on the heels of several orders over the years from the county to Leal insisting he comply. In 2009, the county even sent Leal an order to shut down the business until it was up to code.
The bond Leal will have to issue for the turn lane must be for 150 percent of the estimated cost, though the costs are still unclear at this point. Assistant Planner Byron Turner is expected to give a report to the planning commission in November – because the panel’s plate is full while considering Solargen Energy matters next month.
Supervisors requested that the commission resolve the remaining matters, such as including the requirements in the county’s noise ordinance in the new use permit.
There was no apparent resolution, meanwhile, for a nonpermitted house on the property where Leal had hoped to host a bed-and-breakfast setup.
This week’s decision for supervisors also came six weeks after their latest delay, the third one at the time, in considering Lee’s appeal to the commission.
Lee hadn’t made it to the April planning commission meeting because he said he wasn’t properly notified. He argued it was a matter of “landowning rights.”
