Antioch staff recommends Planning Commission table Sand Creek Specific Plan update at Wed. night meeting
Sand Creek Focus Area Specific Plan Update proposed land use map.
Would allow projects to move forward under existing General Plan
By Allen Payton
In the staff report to the Antioch Planning Commission for their meeting tonight, Wednesday, August 2, Community Development Director Forrest Ebbs is recommending the General Plan Land Use Element Update for the Sand Creek Focus Area Specific Plan be tabled “indefinitely.” That was in response to letters from attorneys for the East Bay Regional Parks District, as well as Save Mt. Diablo and Greenbelt Alliance, stating that the Amended Environmental Impact Report (EIR) which was recently completed, is insufficient and that a more complete Supplemental EIR is needed.
That, however will take more time to complete and it’s already been over a year of review by the commission and direction from the city council. If the commissioners follow Ebbs’ recommendation, then the original Specific Plan and 2003 General Plan EIR, approved by the city council at that time, allowing for approximately 4,000 homes, will remain in effect.
Under the current plan two new developments in the Sand Creek area that include 1,174 homes, were already approved by the city council in 2016. According to the staff report on the matter, “the largest development project in the Sand Creek Focus Area, The Ranch, has already been submitted, was determined to be a complete application, and could be considered under the current General Plan.”
“The development capacity of 4,000 units for the entire plan would not change under the update,” Ebbs said. “All we have been doing is shifting where those units would be built.”
The Ranch project, which has as many as 1,307 homes if the plan is approved with an active, senior adult community element, and any other projects could be delayed if the city pursues the Supplemental EIR. However, under the current plan, if they want to make changes proposed in the update, each developer will have to submit a General Plan Amendment of their own.
The Planning Commission meeting begins at 6:30 p.m. in the Council Chambers at 200 H Street in Antioch’s historic, downtown Rivertown.
I would like to know what this will do to the hope that Kaiser Hospital would finally have a sewer line.