Amador County – Plymouth City Council voted 4-0 with one abstention Wednesday to approve the Development Agreements with Bob Reeder for his high-end, 500-unit housing developments that will be annexed into the city of Plymouth.

Reeder said: “Thank you. After 6-and-a-half years, we’re grateful to get to this point.”

Councilman Jon Colburn abstained from the vote, saying he would still like to seek payment from the developers of the Shenandoah Ridge and Zinfandel subdivisions for a 6.5-acre parcel of land that the city is swapping with the developers. Colburn said the city deserved to get money for the land, though the rest of the council disagreed, because of the land’s close proximity to the city’s municipal sewer storage ponds.

Vice Mayor Greg Baldwin said he earlier had suggested, in working with Colburn that the developer might build driveways on the land and the city might create parcels and then sell them for a profit to the city. But he said the closeness of the sewer ponds changed his mind.

Bob Reeder said he did not really want the swapped property, but saw it as “taking it off the city’s hands” and helping out the city, and he would be accepting it as “open space.” Plymouth’s Special Counsel Adam Lindgren said: “It’s certainly not the kind of place you want to put a restaurant.”

Consultant Richard Prima said the land is part of the city’s spray fields, and the Council allowed Reeder to design its Zinfandel Parkway to be built across the property, and it would separate the 6.5 acres from the rest of the sewer facility.

Colburn said: “I have a problem with just handing over 7-10 acres of city property without getting fair market value.” Part of the land is for the road. Mayor Sandy Kyles asked staff if they were OK with giving the land to the developers, and later had the terminology changed to “conveying” the property to them.

City Manager Jeff Gardner said: “I looked at it as a liability to the city.” It was steep, hilly, close to the sewer ponds, and you can’t raise cattle on it. It is also close to the Mason property’s spring fields, and was across the road and would be outside the city’s municipal fenced area. The swapped open space given by the developer is also unusable due to steepness.

Prima said he was also OK with it, and it was a swap for “open space” land. He said “I’d always assumed it would end up as open space.”

Story by Jim Reece This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.