Amador County – The Plymouth Planning Commission hosted a workshop Wednesday for comments on two developments proposed by Reeder Sutherland Incorporated and its Draft Environmental Impact Report.

The city and the applicant for Shenandoah Ridge and Zinfandel subdivisions led a presentation, and took public comment. Three people spoke, but only one was a Plymouth resident.

Kathy DuBois of Jackson said the map shows no buffer areas between residential and agricultural zones. She also said the Draft EIR did not include architecture styles, and criticized dead end roads in the plans.

Jennifer Mason of Plymouth said she lives across from the city sewer plant and has cows, horses and sheep, but was more worried about traffic speeding on Old Sacramento Road. She said the rugged area in the south part of the Zinfandel footprint was steep, and a wildfire there once spread at “six miles a minute.”

Elida Malick of Fiddletown asked why the “two separate and distinct projects” were “lumped into one EIR.” She also asked if she could get an extension on the comment period, because the document was hard to digest, especially over the holidays. Malick also wondered about Old Sacramento Road becoming a main route in and out of the development.

Plymouth consultant Edward Heming said the two projects were joined under one EIR because the California Environmental Quality Act likes to see comprehensive impacts. He said the projects are going in under a pretty close time frame, and they felt that splitting the projects would be a piecemeal approach.

Heming said the city and applicant would have to give approval of an extension on the comment period. Bob Reeder, of Reeder Sutherland, said later that an extension was unlikely due to delays and time constraints already faced. He noted that Plymouth has changed city planners several times since he has been developing the projects.

He said the comment period required was 30 days, but it was already extended to about 45 days, ending December 31st.

Stefan Horstschraer said they have discussed fire exit roads and a management plan with AFPD Chief Jim McCart. He said connection of Old Sacramento Road came from the city planner in 2005, and traffic speed would be addressed in the EIR. He doubted people would use the road to go to Sacramento, but likely would use it to get to Latrobe Road.

Horstschraer said city documents address architecture guidelines. The Plymouth City Council discussed buffer zones in depth in public hearings for its recent General Plan update, and declined to include buffer zones in the document.

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