How to resolve AdBlock issue? On Wednesday, the California First District Appellate Court ruled that a new environmental impact report, or EIR, for the Guenoc Valley Mixed-Use Development Project — also known as Maha Guenoc Valley — must be prepared because in the previous document the county of Lake didn’t disclose the project’s wildfire ignition risks.
“This groundbreaking decision affirms that local governments and developers must publicly disclose how harmful it is to put a new community in a wildfire zone,” said Peter J. Broderick, an attorney in the Center for Biological Diversity’s Urban Wildlands program. “This is the first time a California appeals court has set aside an environmental review because the agency failed to look at wildfire ignition risk. This ruling is a clear signal to those who continue to push for building low-density development in California’s wildfire-prone areas.”
What’s next for the project itself wasn’t made clear this week.
“We are reviewing today’s decision,” said Kevin Case, a development partner for the Guenoc Valley Project, in a written statement released to Lake County News on Wednesday. “We remain committed to setting the benchmark for best-in-class fire-safe development under the oversight of Lake County and in collaboration with leading fire-safety experts and members of the local community.”
The justices unanimously faulted the county of Lake’s analysis of the project. The county “presents no industry standard modeling tools, no methodology or analysis for its conclusory findings, nor any other discussion of how the Wildfire Plan” — the wildfire prevention plan for the project — “proposes to address the existing baseline conditions other than the Project design proposal itself. This is insufficient,” the ruling explained.
The ruling went on to say that failure to separately identify and analyze the significant impacts of the fire risk to the project area and its baseline existing conditions before proposing mitigation measures violates the California Environmental Quality Act, or CEQA.
The appellate court heard the case on Sept. 24.
At the time of that September hearing, Case said, “The Guenoc Valley Project’s design has undergone years of extensive environmental review by state and local officials. Since day one, our mission has been to establish a new standard for responsible, sustainable and fire-safe community development.”
The court had 90 days to render the decision but issued it on Wednesday, in 29 days.
The Center for Biological Diversity has argued that placing homes in fire-prone areas leads to more ignitions, citing studies that have shown that about 95% of California’s wildfires are caused by human sources.
Broderick said pushing “low density sprawl” into the wildland urban interface puts new and existing residents of an area at risk.
The organization pointed out that the site where the Guenoc Valley project is planned has a long history of wildfires and was actually on fire when the center filed its lawsuit. At that time, the LNU Lightning Complex was burning across the south county.
The property also hosts oak woodlands habitat for sensitive species like golden eagles, foothill yellow-legged frogs and western pond turtles, and it serves as an important wildlife corridor for the region, the center reported.
Background on the case
Lotusland Investment Holdings, headed up by Chinese developer Yiming Xu, proposed the resort and residential development on 16,000 acres near Middletown.
When the Board of Supervisors approved the first phase of the project in July 2020, it included included 385 residential villas in five subdivisions; five boutique hotels with 127 hotel units and 141 resort residential cottages; 20 campsites; up to 100 workforce housing cohousing units; an outdoor entertainment area, spa and wellness amenities, sports fields, equestrian areas, a new golf course and practice facility, camping area and commercial and retail facilities; agricultural production and support facilities; essential accessory facilities, including back of house facilities; 50 temporary workforce hotel units; emergency response and fire center; a float plane dock; and helipads.
A lawsuit filed two months later by the Center for Biological Diversity and the California Native Plant Society, with the California Attorney General’s Office intervening in support of them, led to a fall 2021 trial in Lake County Superior Court before Judge J. David Markham.
In January 2022, Markham handed down his decision, finding that the county’s EIR on the project was insufficient due to its conclusions that community fire evacuation routes were “less than significant.”
In particular, Markham found that the EIR reached that conclusion using opinions of traffic engineers, law enforcement and fire personnel that he said “were not based on any identifiable facts,” and therefore were not legally insufficient to be considered as “substantial evidence” under CEQA.
As a result, Markham ordered the county to rescind the project approvals because the EIR omitted disclosure and analysis of the project’s impacts on wildfire evacuation and public safety.
The Center for Biological Diversity said no one appealed that determination, although it did appeal the trial court’s ruling on several other issues.
In July, the county of Lake released the notice of availability for the new draft partially revised environmental impact report, or DPREIR, for the project, as Lake County News has reported.
At that time, the developer team said that modifications included moving 25 building sites within the equestrian center area and 39 building sites within the northeastern portion of the project site further from the wildland/urban interface; a new emergency route was added; reconfiguring the roadway plan so that there are no dead-end, non-looped road segments that exceed one mile in length; improving areas along the roadways with hardscape; removal of the camping area in the northern portion of the property; funding and staffing commitments for the onsite emergency response center; and renewable energy commitments and greenhouse gas reduction measures that did not change the development footprint.
That new environmental document issued in July was a result of Markham’s ruling.
A look at the appellate ruling
The Center for Biological Diversity said the First Appellate District ruling goes further than Markham’s: It determined that the county failed to assess how the project would worsen existing wildfire risks.
In the ruling, the justices didn’t find for the center on other aspects of its suit, including issues with greenhouse gas emissions and carbon credits, the allegation that the transportation demand management plan was inadequate or whether the county provided enough information regarding an off-site well’s impact on the Middletown aquifer.
The court also noted, “We are unpersuaded,” in response to the center’s contention that the EIR rejected a less environmentally impactful alternative for the project “as infeasible without the properly supported findings that CEQA requires.”
The justices ultimately reversed Markham’s decision that the EIR adequately disclosed the project’s impact on increasing the area’s existing wildfire risks, but affirmed it in all other respects.
The case is now being sent back to the trial court, “which shall issue an order granting the Petitioners’ petition for a writ of mandate vacating the County’s certification of the EIR and approval of the project,” the ruling said.
As to how the project might, or might not move forward, “It’s really in the county’s hands now, what they are going to do next,” said Broderick.
“We believe it’s incumbent on the county to take a hard look at the true costs of this project,” which include the costs of developing in a wildfire-prone region, he said.
Broderick said the center believes that if the public knows the true costs of developing such a project, “there will be much less enthusiasm for proposing and approving harmful developments like this.”
Email Elizabeth Larson at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. . Follow her on Twitter, @ERLarson, or Lake County News, @LakeCoNews.
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