Record-Bee staff
LAKEPORT ?? Lake County”s Board of Supervisors won”t be voting on the revised Cristallago golf course-subdivision application recently submitted to the county Community Development Department by developers Mark Mitchell and Matt Boeger until about this time next year.
But if the application went before the board tomorrow it would not receive the critical vote of Board Chair Anthony Farrington in whose district the northwest Lakeshore project is proposed.
“Right now, in concept I don”t think I would support it,” said Farrington, who told Mitchell and Boeger when they brought their original plan for Cristallago before the supervisors on April 4 that to have any chance of approval the massive, 856-acre project must be much more resort ? and far less residential ? oriented.
Since then, the two developers tailored their plan. Originally calling for 1,000 single family residences and 200 resort units around a Jack Nicklaus-signature golf course, they trimmed the number of residences to 789 and upped the number of resort units to 385.
“They (supervisors) wanted to see a larger resort component to this project and I think that”s what we”ve done,” said Mitchell, the CEO of Origin Construction. “The project we”re coming back with has a significantly larger resort component to it.”
But obviously not enough to suit Farrington. It”s not the number of residence versus resort units ? presently a 2-to-1 ratio ? that he is opposed to, but the structural appearance of the resort units. Too many of those proposed, he says, look too much like residential units.
“They”re going in the wrong direction,” Farrington said of the two developers. “You won”t be able to differentiate aesthetically or visually from any of the residential homes. The real problem is that the 385 units are not your traditional hotel-condo units.
“They look like a house, they feel like a house, and they smell like a house.”
Assistant Com-munity Development Director Rick Coel said that the 385-unit resort segment of the plan submitted by Mitchell and Boeger includes time shares, fractional ownership and hotel units ranging in size from 2,400 to 350 square feet. Coel said he would not use Mitchell”s word “significant” in describing the difference between the original proposal and the revised one, adding, “It”s closer (to what the supervisors want), but I don”t know what it really needs to be.”
Essentially, Farrington said he told Boeger in a phone conversation, “You ask me for my advice and then I tell you, but then you guys go and do what you want to do and that”s just not going to fly with me. Don”t ask me for my opinion if you”re not going to incorporate it into your design. Don”t even bother wasting my time and asking me.
“It was a heavy conversation,” Farrington added, “but we were respectful of one another”s opinions. The heat is on me; I need to make sure that this project is complementary to the vision we have for Lakeport and for the county.”
Mitchell says it”s a matter of miscommunication, that his understanding has been that the board”s objective is for Cristallago to increase transient occupancy tax (TOT) revenues.
“Nowhere along the line did they (supervisors) ask us what (the resort units) are going to look like,” he asserted. “Their comment to us was that they wanted more units that had transient type occupancy, where people were moving in and moving out. Who cares what they look like as long as they produce TOT tax? Just because it doesn”t look like a motel doesn”t mean that it”s not a motel.
“For Farrington to say it looks like a house and smells like a house, well, how do you want it to smell? Do you want it to get property tax or TOT tax? If they want to be specific on what the units will look like, that”s going to come forward with the specific plan of approval.”
Mitchell said he has requested a meeting with Farrington for further clarification.
One piece of fairly good news for Cristallago”s would-be builders is that after seeing the revised plan, one of the development”s most severe critics, Victoria Brandon, chair of the county”s Sierra Club chapter, said it was “definitely an improvement over the old one” and that they appear headed in the right direction.
“But I still have grave doubts about the advisability of that golf course,” said Brandon, “and I have many lingering concerns regarding not only the immediate environmental impact but the general impact of such a large subdivision with all its associated facilities on the community. It”s certainly going to change Lakeport forever.”
Farrington said that it”s way too early to discuss sustainable growth incentives, such as cost breaks for solar power, with Mitchell and Boeger, but energy conservation issues have been discussed. One of these is the restriction of fresh water for watering the golf course. Instead, “purple piping,” a secondary supply source bringing in recycled water, would be used for both the course and toilets in the subdivision.
What form the project takes can still be altered, depending on the completion of an environmental impact report (EIR), which is about to begin with a call for bids from consulting firms to develop it from the Community Development Department
“The county has a pretty strict policy on the selection of consultants,” Coel said. “It”s somewhat similar to when we hire a county employee. We put a panel together of five people, then evaluate the various proposals submitted to us to determine which one is going to do the best job.
“Then, we make a recommendation to the Board of Supervisors to approve a contract to hire that consultant. The applicant pays us the costs of the consultant”s services and we put it in a special fund to pay the consultant.”
The selection process takes about two months, Coel said. The EIR process, itself, for a large project like Cristallago could consume nine months or more.
“We”ll meet five or six months down the road for a public scoping meeting, which is kind of a workshop,” Coel said. “You want to hear from the public, particularly neighbors so that their comments and concerns can be incorporated into the environmental analysis.”
So, when will Cristallago go back before the planning commission?
“We”re probably talking close to a year,” said Coel.
Farrington said he doesn”t want to see “a bunch of tract homes surrounding a golf course.” The best thing for Lakeport would be a project that is “diversified, has multi-uses, a bunch of open space, a resort component and a tie with the lake,” he said.
“This project could be a good thing for the community, or it could be horrible.”
Contact John Lindblom at jlwordsmith@mchsi.com.
