The on-again, off-again O’Connell Ranch project may finally be
off, as the San Benito County Board of Supervisors rejected an
appeal Tuesday that would have kept the project alive.
The on-again, off-again O’Connell Ranch project may finally be off, as the San Benito County Board of Supervisors rejected an appeal Tuesday that would have kept the project alive.
The Board turned down an appeal by the project’s applicant, Gary Coats, to reverse a previous ruling by the Planning Commission.
The vote to reject the appeal came after it was withdrawn by Coats. However, the Board retained the right to rule on the appeal despite its withdrawal prior to the vote, county officials said.
The rejection of the appeal came just a few weeks after the Board originally voted to uphold the appeal and allow the applicant to do an environmental impact report.
Supervisors said they found several problems in a further review of the project, forcing them to change their minds about the appeal.
“We studied it closely and decided to change our minds,” Supervisor Ruth Kesler said.
Part of the problem the Board had in allowing the project to go forward was that supervisors were concerned that any EIR completed now could be obsolete by the time the project was actually constructed. An obsolete EIR could not take into account a myriad of environmental problems that may have developed over time.
“Things change every year,” Kesler said.
According to county ordinances, the project can not be resubmitted to the planning department for at least 12 months. However, rejecting the appeal does not kill the project outright. If the applicant wants to submit a scaled-down version of the project, he could do so almost immediately, planning officials said.
