MIDDLETOWN – Val Nixon, president of Lake County Land Trust, presented on their 9-acre Rabbit Hill park in Middletown during the Middletown Area Town Hall meeting Thursday at the Middletown Library
The serpentine outcropping has unique flora that can handle the characteristic high magnesium, calcium and heavy metals in the soil. Rabbit Hill has a rich “pre-contact” cultural history with evidence of at least three tribes inhabiting the area. Skee and Huck Hamann owned the property and donated it to Madrone Audubon, who in turn asked the Lake County Land Trust to take over the property in 1999. The park is open from dawn to dusk and offers 360-degree views of the Middletown valley.
After the Valley Fire, a partnership with the Middletown Art Center (MAC) developed that led to the Gateway to the Sky sculpture installation by Marcus Maria Young. The current painting of the Cal Fire water tank, a collaboration of MAC, the National Endowment of the Arts and the Middletown Rancheria of Pomo Indians is beautifying Rabbit Hill while honoring its cultural history, Nixon said. “We want to get your feedback and your ideas and what would you like to see on Rabbit Hill … this beautiful serpentine outcropping with views of all of Middletown….” Their email is, lclt@lakecountydrailtrust.com.
Trish Turner, Assistant Planner with the Community Development Department, gave an overview of the Lake County 2050 plan. The General Plan for the county serves as a growth blueprint and flows out to the local area plans. The Middletown Area Plan of 2010 encompassed Anderson Springs, Coyote Valley, Hidden Valley and Middletown to the county border. “The key issues identified by citizens of Middletown were land use, circulation, open space conservation and recreation, environmental justice, public facilities and services, economic development, health and safety, water resources, and agricultural resources,” Turner stated. The 2010 plan incorporated three special study areas of Middletown, Coyote Valley, and Guenoc Valley. The local area plan will reconsider community growth boundaries. The Board of Supervisors has appointed members to the Middletown Local Area Plan Advisory Committee (LAPAC) which will start meeting this month. Community involvement in the LAPAC is essential, Turner said.
“If you’re expanding growth boundaries and you have no infrastructure, then you have a lot of parcels within the growth boundaries that are not developable.…” MATH Chair Monica Rosenthal responded. “ …My concern is that people are putting out information not based on any criteria, how is the department going work with that? “
Lisa Kaplan had additional concerns. “…How (is) this Guenoc development …going to impact our economics? There needs to be a study to determine that…. Middletown has …a lot of poverty or near poverty but our school has only 50% free and reduced lunch…. So we don’t qualify for a whole lot of grants that some of the other schools in Lake County qualify for,…. Having Guenoc come in … would change our tax base. …Is that tax money going (to) increase the amount of money that the schools get, or is the impact going to be such that we’re going qualify for even (fewer) grants than we already do? This is something that actually needs to be researched in my opinion.”
Other residents voiced concerns regarding the impact of the low-income housing planned for some 300+ Guenoc hospitality workers who may end up competing with current Middletown residents for local housing and municipal services.
Turner responded that that the Guenoc project was not something with which she was familiar. Mareya Turner, CDD Director, responded by text that questions and concerns about the Guenoc Valley project could be sent to the Lake County Community Development Department (CDD).
