Amador County – Developers of two projects with nearly 500 units in Plymouth released a Draft Environmental Impact Report last week, opening a comment period that closes at the year’s end.
Bob Reeder, president of Reeder Sutherland Incorporated, said the Draft EIR for his Shenandoah Ridge and Zinfandel residential development projects went to the state clearinghouse on Wednesday, November 10th, opening a public comment period.
A public hearing is not necessary and not required by law, Reeder said, but consultants thought it would be a good idea to give people the chance to make verbal comment at a meeting, for those who do not comment in writing. That public comment meeting is set for December 15th at Plymouth City Hall, during a Planning Commission meeting, which normally starts at 7 p.m.
The deadline for comments is Friday, December 31st. Reeder said the normally 30-day comment period was extended because of the holidays.
Over the last couple of years, Reeder Sutherland has made some minor changes to the project. Reeder said: “Once we identified wetlands, we reduced our impacts to almost nothing on wetlands.” They moved some roads and changed some lots to completely avoid wetlands.
Zinfandel has about 8 acres of wetlands, including 2 ponds. Shenandoah Ridge had less than 2 acres of wetlands.
Reeder said they “got the impact down to less than a tenth of an acre (of wetlands) at each project.” He said the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers sees avoidance as the best approach. Reeder estimated they avoided almost 98-99 percent of wetlands in the Zinfandel project, and 95 percent in Shenandoah Ridge.
Dwelling units in the projects are 137 for Shenandoah, and 365 for Zinfandel, where they moved things around, deleted some lots, added others, and moved roads. At Zinfandel, he said “about 6 more lots could go away upon expansion of the sewer reservoir,” making it about 359 equivalent dwelling units in Zinfandel, and 496 total units in both developments.
Reeder said the plan is to tie the projects into the city’s water and sewer system. A copy of the Draft Environmental Impact Report is available at Plymouth City Hall.
Story by Jim Reece. This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..
