A week after the San Benito County Board of Supervisors voted
3-2 in favor of controversial plans to build a 44-unit hotel in
Tres Pinos, hotel opponents said they’re not giving up.
A week after the San Benito County Board of Supervisors voted 3-2 in favor of controversial plans to build a 44-unit hotel in Tres Pinos, hotel opponents said they’re not giving up.
“We’re still kind of looking at our options right now,” said Tres Pinos resident Jamie Frusetta. “We still want to fight for our rights.”
It’s too early to say what form that fight will take, Frusetta said, because many opponents are still “in shock.”
“We are looking into all the options that we have,” she said.
If built, the hotel would be near the intersection of Southside Road and Highway 25, and many have said it could bring needed tourist dollars to a county that’s short on lodging.
Like Frusetta, most of the hotel’s opponents are Tres Pinos residents. They have said the hotel is a bad fit for a residential neighborhood and could ruin their quiet community.
Supervisor Don Marcus, on the other hand, said he stands behind his decision to approve the zone change after saying he wouldn’t without a detailed environmental study of the property.
“I certainly do understand the concern of those residents who will be neighbors to the commercial property,” Marcus said. “But I feel very comfortable with the decision I made. We have to be concerned about the intelligent growth process in this county.”
Marcus’ vote in favor of a change from residential to commercial zoning – which the project needed to move forward – drew particular fire from anti-hotel residents because Marcus had previously demanded an environmental impact report from hotel developers John and Jae Eade. At the Oct. 23 meeting, the Eades’ attorney Paul Rovella said his clients aren’t willing to wait and pay for an EIR, so the demand “essentially kills the project.”
Marcus said there were two factors that influenced his change of heart. First, the Eades had offered to pay for any of the county’s legal costs if the decision is challenged. Such indemnification is standard for major developments, Deputy County Counsel Shirley Murphy said, but it doesn’t normally accompany a zone change.
More important, Marcus said he spoke to the San Benito County Water District, the California Department of Transportation and the county Planning Department, and many of his previous concerns about environmental risks were assuaged.
“I always felt it would be a viable project and that I’d endorse it if I was comfortable with those issues,” Marcus said.
One of the biggest concerns has been water. Marcus noted that at the supervisors’ meeting, Planning Director Art Henriques said the Central Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board had not authorized the Tres Pinos Water District’s water and sewer moratorium. Henriques also said the district’s system has capacity for more hookups.
Matthew Keeling, a water resource control engineer with the water board, said even though his agency did not impose the moratorium, it did raise concerns about the district’s capacity.
“As far as the water district imposing their own moratorium on sewer hookups and any water hookups, they can do that,” Keeling said Tuesday. “Quite honestly, they’re taking a conservative approach.”
Now that the supervisors have approved the zone change, the Planning Commission must perform a commercial district review to determine whether project plans match current zoning. Planning Commissioner Dan DeVries – who voted against the zone change on June 6, and then voted for the change on Aug. 15 – said that with the supervisors’ decision, he’s hoping compromise is possible.
“We’d say, ‘Let’s talk about the issue of parking,’ but the opponents would say, ‘We don’t want a hotel there,'” DeVries said. “No one was willing to have that discussion. Hopefully, we can move past that … now that we know a hotel, not necessarily that hotel, belongs there. ”
