Dear Jon Update: Monterey Downs EIR released

Update 3.30.15: The City of Seaside released the draft environmental impact report for Monterey Downs a day early. Here’s the link if you’d like to see it.

http://seasidemontereydownsandveteranscemeteryspecificplan.com/Documents/deir/default.htm

I’m told that the economic report which will show the financial benefits to Seaside, Marina, Monterey County and all involved, is still in draft form and is being reviewed by the city and it’s consultant. It’s on the third draft at this point.

Update 3.24.15: The City of Seaside has set March 31 as the date to release the long awaited environmental impact report. With that will be the economic impact report to allow the public to view many facets of the proposed development. Both reports will be available at city hall or online for 60 days.

Water and traffic impacts will be addressed in the EIR, those seem to be the hot topics. In the economic report you’ll see what developers believe will support jobs in Seaside and Marina. You’ll also see how much money the cities will glean from fees and increase tax base from the development. There’s a lot more to view, the specific plan is a thick document.

Once the public period is over, the Seaside city planners will take the comments from citizens and provide responses to those specific issues. Once that’s completed perhaps another two months, the city council will take up the matter in public as to whether to certify the EIR. If they do certify, that still allows another 30 day period for someone to challenged the certified EIR in court.

But first things first, seeing the EIR and economic reports should be an eye opener for many in Seaside and Marina.

Update 2.19.15: The spokesperson for Keep Fort Ord Wild, Michael Salerno wrote to me and explained their groups records requests in July 2014 with the City of Seaside with regard to the Monterey Downs development.

Salerno said, “In response, Seaside released a voluminous amount of Monterey Downs records over a period of time. Seaside reportedly planned to release the Monterey Downs Environmental Impact Report first in August 2014, then in September 2014, then in October 2014, then in November 2014, then in December 2014, then in March 2015.”

He went on to say, “Keep Fort Ord Wild has no control over the release date of the EIR or of the contents of the EIR. Keep Fort Ord Wild still has no idea when the Monterey Downs EIR will be released.”

The story from Monterey Downs COO, Beth Palmer, placed the delay on Don Freeman, City Attorney for Seaside, who has yet to return my call. Now Keep Fort Ord Wild. Although Palmer claims a ‘privileged’ memo between the city and it’s planners was mistaking released in the Keep Fort Ord Wild public records request. It was this document that what given to the Monterey County Weekly and released two days before the city was to release the EIR to the public.

Salerno continued, “The Monterey Downs water issues are very troubling. Seaside has nothing left in its so-called FORA “allocation” of Fort Ord water, which is paper water in any event. Thus, Seaside has no water left to allocate to Monterey Downs. Speculative water sources are not reliable.”

Monterey Downs has said their water plans are not needed all at once, just over the 20 years each phase of the project is built. But they do have to be account for water plans in the specific plan ahead of time, which is difficult to do, but not impossible. Developer Boudreau says they’ll have plenty of water as they sources come online.

Finally Salerno said, “The ‘memo’ released addresses the Monterey Downs EIR and inadequacy of available water supplies for the project. Later, Seaside released the water section of the December 2014 version for the Monterey Downs EIR. The water section had already been provided by Seaside to the Monterey Downs developer. Both these Seaside public records are being posted on the Keep Fort Ord Wild website for the public to review.”

The Monterey Downs Environmental and economic reports will be released, perhaps, sometime in March.

Original article: Water for Monterey Downs has been vetted by developers upside down and sideways, but there still seems to be a controversy, and that may all be changing.

It’s been two months and counting on the delay of the release of the environmental impact and economic reports that were scheduled to be release in Seaside on December 19, 2014.

“It was just a bump in the road, an unexpected bump,” says Beth Palmer, Monterey Downs Chief Operating Officer. “We just felt that the EIR was ready to be released. I don’t think that anything needed to be changed.”

Palmer said city staff was very diligent in preparing the document over the last year. “Everybody was comfortable that it was ready to go out on the 19 th . Otherwise they would not have said it was ready to go out.”

But the release of the document took an unexpected turn just days before the release.

Says Palmer, “Two days before that was supposed to happen, there was a confidential memo that was released by accident, and it came out in the paper. The city attorney for the City of Seaside got nervous and pulled the document back for further review.”

Palmer says the group ‘Keep Fort Ord Wild’ did a public information request in the summer and that privileged document was mistakenly included in the release to the group.

“Why release a document that you’ve had for months, two days for the scheduled release of the EIR?” Asks Palmer.

So what was on that document that was “privileged” between the city and their attorneys and not supposed to be made public but was released in the media?

“It wasn’t even specific to the EIR, it just said in your analysis, to make sure it’s adequate by law, these are the things you need to consider,” says Palmer.

I attempted to get comment from ‘Keep Fort Ord Wild’, but no one responded to my request.

City contract planner Teri Wissler-Adam tells me that water was one of the items that a third party law firm was to review with regard to the Monterey Downs Specific Plan.

“The city attorney for the City of Seaside got nervous or for whatever reason, he’s never read the EIR and he was unsure of what it said and said it needs to be pulled for further review by attorneys for the City of Seaside and we’re going to pull it and analyze the entire document. That’s at our cost,” says Palmer. Just since 2010, Palmer says her firm has spent over $1 million in city costs to fund the planning of Monterey Downs with the City of Seaside, and $8 million since 2008 when then began.

I contacted Seaside City Attorney, Don Freeman for this story and my call was not returned.

In December, Palmer and managing developer, Brian Boudreau revealed to News Channel 5 a first look at new drawings of the proposed sports arena on the former Ft. Ord. It gave us a glimpse that the development is way beyond horse racing. The development is about becoming a destination for hospitality, retail and sporting events. Quite visionary to say the least and all within the confines of the Ft. Ord reuse plan. The Monterey Herald even endorsed the Monterey Downs project 2 years ago.

Palmer and Boudreau say the plan for water for their development is sufficient as it stands. The development would use less then half the currently available water for Ft. Ord which is 6600 acre feet a year. This is especially true, they say, when you consider their project will be built in stages over 20 years.

“And when those water sources come online, we’ll have more than enough water and so will every other project on the Ft. Ord,” says Boudreau.

But if water is a concern to some, a new development just in the last month could make the water question moot. The Marina Coast Water District Board, that covers the Ft. Ord community, approved on a 3-2 vote moving forward on a new 2700 acre foot desalination plant.

Palmer says, “That covers any project that anybody could imagine on Ft. Ord.”

And what about the trees? The 550 acre Monterey Downs project sits on land designated for the base’s economic development. The one component of the Ft. Ord Reuse Authority plan that hasn’t really been realized yet. Several educational entities are on the former base land and 20 thousand of its 28 thousand acres will be preserved as open land.

“EIR review is done,” says Palmer, “I’ve been told that the outside counsel has finished their review. That have asked for a few small changes and the EIR consultant is making those changes. Then the EIR is going to be released, hopefully in 30 days.”

Palmer and Boudreau are excited to get the report out to the public to see what the project is all about. “There’s retail, hospitality, goods and services, this community desperately needs these at all levels for everybody,” says Palmer.

At the heart of it, they say, is 2800 jobs the county desperately needs after 18,000 base jobs were lost when Ft. Ord was closed.