Curtis Hall at Sierra 2 filled to capacity on September 29th for the EIR scoping meeting for the proposed Curtis Park Village. Approximately 250 neighbors were joined by City Councilmember Lauren Hammond, City Manager Bob Thomas, a contingent of City staff, and the developer, Paul Petrovich, and his employees.
Traffic from the proposed development and its effect on neighborhood streets continues to be the major issue. Donner Way and Fifth Avenue residents presented their requests for the environmental analysis. There was overwhelming support for direct pedestrian access to the light rail stations as part of the development. While not related to the issue of the EIR, a number of neighbors took the opportunity to express their opposition to the name “Curtis Park Village” for the proposed new development.
Some Curtis Park residents also attended the two subsequent meetings on Curtis Park Village. The first, on October 14, was billed as a project briefing by City staff to the Planning Commission. Residents who attended that meeting were surprised that, instead of City staff, the developer’s representative conducted the briefing.
The second scoping meeting on October 21 st was conducted by the City Planning Commission. At that meeting, several Curtis Park residents were pleased with the attention that Commissioners paid to their comments. Some of the Commissioners told City staff that they want the EIR to consider the project impacts on neighborhood streets and to include a project alternative with less density. Marian Moe of Donner Way and also an SCNA Board member will be discussing with City staff and the Commission the analysis of the proposed project’s traffic impacts on our neighborhood streets.
The next step is for the developer’s EIR consultant and City staff to design the EIR, taking into account the comments made at the scoping meetings. They expect to have the outline of the EIR done in December. At that time, SCNA will get a copy of the outline, so the neighborhood will know which alternatives to the project are being studied. It is anticipated that the draft EIR will be ready for public review in May of 2005.
As was reported in last month’s Viewpoint, the developer has agreed to monitor for dust at the cleanup site on a windy day. The weather provided some windy days and monitoring for dust from the piles was conducted. The developer is awaiting the test results and will share the results with the community.
In the meantime, all of the rain that we have had resulted in the developer suspending the soil remediation efforts for the season. The work will resume in early spring of 2005. The rain has made the site very muddy so they will not be able to load any additional railcars this year. Therefore, the existing stockpiles will remain over the winter and the developer is winterizing the site by covering the stockpiles.
If you want to remain up to date on this project, add your name to SCNA’s e-mail alert list by sending an Email. If you signed up already, but have not received any e-mails, please sign up again. (A number of e-mails are being returned as undeliverable.)
Also, the Curtis Park Village Web site will be updated soon. If you do not have e-mail, please call Jana at 452-3005 and ask to be put on the phone list. And by the way, we are looking for someone to handle the phone list (which is pretty manageable) – so consider volunteering.