Amador County – The Amador County Local Agency Formation Commission returns to a public hearing next week to consider the annexation of two residential development project areas into Plymouth city limits.
Amador LAFCO’s oversight board on Thursday, Jan. 19 will consider the annexation requests by the city, for two properties owned by Bob Reeder, to be developed by his company, Reeder Sutherland Incorporated. In December, LAFCO approved Plymouth’s request to amend the city’s “Sphere of Influence” to include the two properties, and continued the public hearing to January to consider the annexation.
Plymouth City Manager Jeff Gardner said “the annexation is going to happen.” He invited anyone who wanted to comment on the issue to come to the meeting, 6 p.m. Thursday, Jan. 19, in the supervisors’ chambers. The Plymouth annexation is the only item on the agenda.
Gardner said LAFCO Executive Director Roseanne Chamberlain told him that in 22 years of doing this, the Reeder projects and annexation package have been “the most well coordinated thing she has seen going through LAFCO.” Gardner said Reeder is a pleasure to work with, pays his bills, and when the city asks him to do something, he does things immediately. Gardner anticipated that good relationship would continue as the projects progress.
Reeder and partners, including Stefan Horstschraer and Joseph Merten are invested in Amador County and want to see the projects succeed, Gardner said, and Plymouth water and sewer ratepayers also want to see the projects succeed, because this “could ultimately lower the sewer and water rates.” He said it costs a lot for the city to provide those services to 437 households.
If LAFCO approves the annexation next Thursday, the next step is to finalize the “Development Agreement” between the city and the developers. “We are now down to the last several tweaks,” Gardner said. He expected the Development Agreement to be on the first agenda in February for Plymouth City Council consideration.
Once the Development Agreement is finalized, he said a 90-day period follows during which the agreement can be challenged. After that, the developers would then be able to start preliminary engineering and work toward getting an encroachment permit from Caltrans. The permit is expected to take a year, for the main entry to the Zinfandel project on Highway 49, further down from the hardware store. Reeder already has an agreement with the owners for a property swap for the entry road.
After engineering and the Caltrans encroachment, Gardner said Reeder “would like to get going in 2013 on the development.” The 25-year, phased projects include the smaller Shenandoah Ridge, which has larger homes, slated for 137 units. The larger Zinfandel, on the southwest side of town, would have 365 lots.
Story by Jim Reece This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
