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Planning commissioners mull over voluminous environmental report on the Surland housing project and water park.
 Rendering of the proposed neighborhood. Press file.
The hearing was presented at the Tracy Planning Commission,
but no action was taken.
The public has another month to expect written responses
from city officials to any concerns before the public comment period expires
June 14.
The environmental review found that construction of the
2,250 homes planned for The Surland Cos.’ housing development and water park
would create noise, traffic and air pollution. It could also force Pacific Gas and
Electric Co. to replace two natural gas pipelines, unless development wrapped
around it.
But the commissioners had little to say about the environmental
review except that they needed more time to study it. Thousands of pages of
documents outlining both the specific plan and the review for the Ellis project
had chairman Pete Mitracos worried that the public and the board had too little
time to digest the information presented.
He asked that city engineers repeat the presentation at the
June 11 commission meeting, when he said he’d be more prepared.
“We’re part-timers here; we’re volunteers, and we’re not experts,”
he said. “All we want is more time.”
But Tracy
residents who commented expressed the opposite sentiment — that getting a water
park built, which is contingent on progress of the Ellis project, can’t come
soon enough.
Engineers assured Mitracos that everyone can provide input
until August, when amendments to the developer agreement are up for approval.
Mitracos also asked whether the water park was too expensive
for Tracy to
maintain after it’s built.
Before getting to the environmental review, Surland owner
Les Serpa, some private consultants and city staff went over the developer
agreement and suggested design of the development.
City Council candidate Larry Gamino said he was disappointed
to see the architectural style was so European and unreflective of Tracy’s history.
“It’s historical amnesia,” he told the commission, “that
there’s this absence of (influence) of native tribes, like the Tuolumne.”
Also up for public hearing tonight was a request from the
owners of Tracy Gateway, a proposed business park, for a five-year construction
delay on a nine-hole golf course and a 200-room hotel. The owners also asked if
the contract could be changed so they could have retail space built before
200,000 square feet of office space.
The commission supported the requested amendment for the
delay, which would extend the project to 2016, and staff will take it to City Council.
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HAVE WE LEARNED NOTHING?
But Tracy residents who commented expressed the opposite sentiment — that getting a water park built, which is contingent on progress of the Ellis project, can’t come soon enough.
APPARENTLY NOT!
"Mitracos also asked whether the water park was too expensive for Tracy to maintain after it’s built"
ALL THE RIGHT QUESTSIONS, ALL THE WRONG ANSWERS.