I have reviewed the memo concerning the 20-year Cristallago sub-division proposal which was prepared by the Lake County Planning Department. To say that this development should scare each and every citizen in Lake County is an understatement. These houses will be packed in like sardines from Parkway all the way along Highway 29 heading north from Lakeport. Clustered together as if we were in Manteca, Stockton or Rio Vista. The Lake County General Plan was developed in order to stop this urban sprawl from happening in our county. They have been very careful to not show us what this site will look like when you drive by. This is not a resort environment (the Marina project has already gone bankrupt); this is a subdivision with a golf course, period.
This project will put the lake, the environment, the neighbors in the vicinity and the watershed of Scott Creek in jeopardy. They want us to believe that they can take care of any problems that might result from the subdivision; all for the sake of money. They want to start the grading and cutting in of home sites right away, leaving the landscape looking like one large construction site for 20 years without one home even purchased. An extremely dangerous way to do it, considering the amount of asbestos in the soil.
If you looked at an aerial view of Rio Vista you would be appalled at all the home site pads with no homes. Is this what our General Plan is about? This grading should only be done in increments of 10 acres. Just imagine what it will look like when the site has been completely graded and not one home yet built. How come they do not show us what it will look like when the entire site is graded? We”ll need to live with this for 20 years.
These developers have been telling us that there will be 586 acres of open space. Suddenly now they are including the golf course (186 acres) as open space. A golf course as open space? Give me a break. This golf course will have toxic holding ponds on it. These will be full of asbestos, herbicides and fertilizer runoff. They will be using approximately 800 tons of fertilizer yearly. They are hoping the golf course will handle between 22,000 to 35,000 golfers a year, if golfers can afford it. This averages out to about 75 rounds of golf per day. They want us to believe that folks will flock to this golf course from around the state. They must be joking. Don”t we have enough golf courses already?
The developers are from Gridley and Fort Bragg. The owners are from Ripon, Fort Bragg and Pleasanton, California. They will all become millionaires and want this subdivision to be built no matter what.
They picked our county because they thought we were an easy mark. I could go on and on about how they have tried to mislead the Planning Commission and now the Board of Supervisors.
The bottomline is that this whole project has been “smoke and mirrors” from the start. This is not what the General Plan was about. This is a subdivision. Plain and simple. Part II will run Tuesday.
Norm Ihle is a resident of Lakeport.
