Queries directly focused on environmental consequences – which include detrimental effects on biological and cultural resources, water quality, air quality, infrastructure, orderly growth patterns and traffic – can most easily be investigated by reading the material posted on line at www.lakelive.org/provinsalia, but the project’s equally doubtful economic implications have not yet been subjected to exhaustive scrutiny.
Some nuggets of information did emerge from the April 22 City Council/Planning Commission "workshop" on the project, including the revelation that the developers propose to retain title to the subdivision's golf course and other open land, instead of turning these recreational amenities over to a homeowners association or equivalent as is common practice.
Since it is also proposed to finance these improvements with bonded indebtedness backed by the full faith and credit of the municipality (which thus assumes a massive potential liability), with the bonds eventually repaid by assessments on project residents, retention of ownership seems at the least startling. In any case, why would the developers have any interest in retaining such a notoriously unprofitable "asset"?
Other questions are many and various. Why is the city planning to invest a huge amount of staff time in negotiating a development agreement on the project before environmental impact report certification – a necessary precondition to any further action – is complete?
How did the consultants happen to omit archaeologist Dr. John Parker's comment letter raising momentous questions regarding California Environmental Quality Act compliance from the "final" environmental impact report? This letter was received by the city and immediately forwarded to Pacific Municipal Consultants, apparently to be submerged permanently. Whether or not other comments were also lost, does this omission cast doubt on the validity of the results, doubts most appropriately rectified by recirculation of the environmental impact report?
Why was this important meeting scheduled barely five days after the "final" environmental impact report was made available to the public, even though the document had been presented to the city in the middle of March?
Who actually owns the Provinsalia project site itself? Modesto-based Price Development Group seems to be merely the first of several corporate layers that lead to Delaware, Mexico and possibly beyond. Who now owns the parcels to the east and south of the project site – approximately 200 acres of wilderness under county rather than city jurisdiction – that were included in geographic and biological surveys in 2004? What do the owners (whoever they may be) plan to do with this property?
Why does developer Dick Price assume that the members of the Planning Commission and City Council are unwilling or unable to read the environmental studies and other background materials necessary for a sound decision? He made dismissive statements to that effect at least twice.
If the owners of the land needed for construction of the new Provinsalia Avenue are reluctant to sell, is the city prepared to invoke its powers of eminent domain? If so, shouldn't that unpleasant possibility be stated explicitly from the beginning?
Who will repay the bonded obligations incurred to construct the Provinsalia golf course if the project is never built, or never built out? If these bonds are structured as now proposed, the city could be left holding the bag. Who will repair this pristine parcel if grading takes place but construction does not, as has happened many times in Lake County?
Answers to these questions, as well as the many additional questions raised during the EIR process, are essential components of a valid evaluation of Provinsalia’s effects on the city, the county, our people, and the land itself. We can only hope that some answers will eventually be forthcoming.
Victoria Brandon is chair of the Sierra Club Lake Group. She lives in Lower Lake.
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