Amador County -- The approval of a 10-million-dollar pipeline project earlier this month has shown the rising tide of a wave of development approaching Plymouth. The Plymouth Planning Commission is considering 9 development applications, including 1 commercial project and 8 housing developments with 1,100 total equivalent dwelling units among them. City Planner Paula Daneluk said the projects are in various stages of application. Handling the pipeline and other issues, the Design Guidelines were continued three times from the original date set to hear it, September 25th.

Last Thursday, planning commissioners considered expanding an area that required design review. The area has yet to be approved by the city council, and the extension would have taken that existing area from its four blocks on downtown Main Street into more than double the current area, across Highway 49 from downtown. Commissioner Marla Moreno said the city has been here 100 years and she thought the program should stop at the highway. In a public hearing, Gary Colburn said taking the program to the other side of 49, where a commercial project was proposed, would be “mixing apples and oranges.” He urged keeping a Victorian era style and said it appeared that they were trying to compromise downtown to have the two blend together. Commissioner Sandy Kyles asked Colburn to “be nice” and to not call the commissioners “ignorant.” Colburn said “you’ve got your hand in my pocket – why the hell should I try to be nice?” Kyles said they should try to work together and not call names.

Liddy D’Agostini urged commissioners to keep the historic business district downtown to draw visitors. Elida Malick of Fiddletown urged having more strict guidelines and a distinction between historic and other districts. Malick urged against having monstrous buildings. Moreno said she would like pedestrian links to downtown from the 49er Village and other areas. Kyles agreed, saying she thought connectivity by sidewalks was important, so people can walk from a hotel to a restaurant and to downtown. The commission voted 3-0 to leave the boundary design as it was in the draft design guidelines. The guidelines will be subject of city council consideration in a public hearing, which has not yet been rescheduled. Story by Jim Reece (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.).