LAKE COUNTY, Calif. — On Friday, a judge heard arguments during the first day of a hearing in the case filed against the Maha Guenoc Valley resort the Board of Supervisors approved last year.
Lake County Superior Court Judge J. David Markham heard several hours’ worth of arguments in the case filed in September 2020 by the Center for Biological Diversity and the California Native Plant Society against the county of Lake over Lotusland Investment Holdings Inc.’s project.
The California Attorney General’s Office, which raised concerns about what it said is a lack of analysis of how the project might increase wildfire risks and impact wildfire evacuations, also has intervened in the case.
The suit challenges approval of the Guenoc Valley Mixed Use Planned Development Project, also known as the Maha Guenoc Valley, which the board approved in July 2020.
The project is proposed to be built on a portion of the 16,000-acre Guenoc Ranch. It will include nearly 1,400 residential estate villas, 400 hotel units and 450 resort residential units at build out, which is expected to take about a decade.
Peter Broderick, who led the arguments for the Center for Biological Diversity, offered a quote from the meeting during which the board approved the project: “This is the largest land use decision this board will ever make.”
That statement was made by then-Supervisor Rob Brown, the lone dissenter in the vote on the project. Brown raised concerns that the project didn’t specify that an off-site well would be specifically designated as a “secondary” water source and didn’t include triggers that would be necessary before that water could be used instead of the groundwater source at the resort site.
The main thrust of Broderick’s arguments focused on the environmental impact report, or EIR, created for the project, which the supervisors ultimately adopted.
“This is the one chance the public and the county get to consider these issues,” said Broderick, explaining that once the EIR is certified, there is no going back.
Andrew Contreiras of the Attorney General’s Office said the agency intervened due to its belief that the EIR failed in its core function, and didn’t look at how the project would increase wildfire hazards in this region.
He said Guenoc’s 25 square miles already faces serious wildfire risk and the area burns frequently. The Maha Guenoc Valley project would create a new wildland urban interface, introduce low density residential and resort, which Contreiras said is the riskiest kind of development.
In addition to wildfire risk, the petitioners in the case said the EIR didn’t explain calculations for greenhouse gas emissions, and needed more analysis of water impact and the potential impacts on native species.
Information presented on behalf of the California Native Plant Society noted that the ranch’s 16,000 undeveloped acres — which is more than 12,000 football fields — include rare serpentine soils.
There are 107 different special status plant species that occur or are likely to occur on the site, which the group argued will be in immediate jeopardy or will be if the environment changes.
The society faulted the county for releasing an errata for the EIR that included substantive changes to the project, including a general plan amendment, on the Friday evening before the final July 2020 hearing, without the document being recirculated.
Contreiras said the county failed to consider a more compact option, option C, for the resort that would substantially reduce the environmental impacts. He said the EIR provided only a scant, vague description of that alternative.
Attorneys Jonathan Bass and Charmaine Yu argued on behalf of Lotusland during the Friday hearing.
Bass said the county found based on very substantial evidence and analysis that the project would not exacerbate wildfire risk, adding that wide areas of Northern California and Lake County already are subject to wildfires.
He said he’s been litigating California Environmental Quality Act, or CEQA, cases for 40 years and has rarely appeared in court on a case that improves the environment.
Bass said it substantially negates 90% of the argument about wildfire risk and evacuation processes once one acknowledges that CEQA is simply not a tool to be used to advance a wider social or environmental policy.
He questioned what proved the project has a negative impact on the environment in terms of wildfire risk. “The evidence isn’t there.
Bass said the overwhelming quantum of evidence fully justifies the Board of Supervisors’ conclusion to approve the project.
During the arguments, he made the point that it’s not allowed to legislate from the bench.
“We think the board did its job,” Bass said, pointing out that the supervisors live in and know the area.
In response to the issues raised about special plant species, Yu said only nine special status plants have been observed on the site, and all have been mapped. There are mitigations for when a development can’t avoid such plants.
Yu argued that the county of Lake took environmental steps beyond what it needed to do.
She suggested that the idea that anything was rushed was a completely artificial construct, explaining that people in the project area had been commenting on the project for years.
It would be a “step of tremendous significance” to do what the case’s petitioners were seeking, which is to have the EIR recirculated, said Yu, adding that CEQA guidelines set a high bar for recirculation and require there be new information.
Yu said the Board of Supervisors has a right and responsibility to ask if a project fits into its vision for the county. The project is infeasible if it doesn’t.
By the end of the day, arguments had not been completed. As a result, Markham continued the hearing to 2 p.m. Wednesday in order to finish.
He said he’s hoping to have a final decision within two weeks of the end of arguments, although after considering the testimony on Friday, he said that timeline may be optimistic.
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