LAKEPORT, Calif. – In a brief special meeting on Wednesday, the Board of Supervisors took the final steps to deny the appeal of a Texas developer seeking to build a Dollar General store in Middletown, a reversal from action the board was expected to take last week and one which appears to stop the project as proposed.
Board Chair Jeff Smith was absent for the 13-minute Wednesday morning meeting, which was chaired by Vice Chair Jim Steele.
The special meeting was necessary to meet the June 2 deadline to approve the findings of fact in the appeal of Plano, Texas-based Cross Development, which proposed to build a 9,100-square-foot Dollar General store at 20900 Highway 29.
On May 23, the board had been expected to approve findings of fact confirming its vote on April 19 to grant the developer’s appeal of a January decision by the Lake County Planning Commission to deny a design review permit and mitigated negative declaration.
However, at that May 23 meeting Supervisor Tina Scott changed her vote, concluding that she could not support the document’s statement that the project met the required community design criteria, in particular, guidelines laid out in the Middletown Area Plan.
As a result, County Counsel Anita Grant returned Wednesday with an updated findings of fact document that she said she drafted based on the evidence the board received in the public hearing on the appeal.
The findings referred to testimony by community members that challenged the project’s adherence to both the general plan and the Middletown Area Plan.
The document also cites factors like the design’s large steel sections, box-like elements and color as being incompatible with the Middletown Area Plan and therefore failing to reinforce the town’s scale, character and rural atmosphere. It also stated that the project “does not reinforce Middletown’s small town character, but rather, detracts from it.”
In a letter emailed to the board on Tuesday, Cross Development’s attorney Sabrina Teller of the Sacramento firm Remy Moose Manley raised issues with the updated findings of fact document.
“Cross Development objects to the lack of substantial evidence supporting the proposed findings to support the Board’s surprising reversal on May 23rd of its earlier tentative decision on Cross’ appeal of the Planning Commission’s denial of its design review permit,” Teller wrote.
“It is evident from Supervisor Scott’s inability to provide a coherent, specific explanation for her changed vote that the Board’s majority decision is based on nothing more than bias against the tenant of the proposed store, Dollar General, and not on any actual inconsistencies with architectural or site design requirements,” Teller continued.
She added, “It is extremely disappointing to see the County’s elected decision-makers applying vague design ‘recommendations’ in the Middletown Area Plan in a manner so obviously intended to discriminate against badly needed economic development in Lake County.”
Teller’s letter went on to say that denying the project based on incompatibility with the Middletown Area Plan is arbitrary and capricious.
Referring to issues about the structure’s large steel sections and box elements, she said it was impossible to understand how the Fast Track Oil/Velloo Quick Lube station to be located two parcels away – which the county approved in December – could be found to be consistent with the Middletown Area Plan. She said it’s an unembellished, predominantly metal structure with a color scheme similar to Dollar General’s.
“Why was that structure found to be compliant if the Dollar General is not?” she asked.
The key difference between the Dollar General and Velloo projects, however, appears to be one of size; the lube station is a 2,230 square foot building, versus the Dollar General’s 9,100-square-foot size, according to planning documents.
Because the store plan is more than 8,000 square feet, the project has required a more in-depth planning process that includes the approval of a major use permit, while the Velloo project required only a minor use permit.
In her letter, Teller also argued that terms the finding used like “village scale” and “small town character” are be “vague and undefined, and that as a result the board’s decision lacks substantial supporting evidence.
Several community members spoke during a brief public comment period at Wednesday’s meeting, thanking the board for recognizing their concerns that the project failed to adhere to the Middletown Area Plan.
“We have area plans for a reason, to make things fit into the dream that our constituents want,” said south county real estate agent Julie Richardson.
In two subsequent 3-1 votes, the board approved the updated findings of fact that found the project does not meet community design criteria and denied the appeal. Supervisor Moke Simon – who represents the Middletown area – was the lone dissenter on both votes, which received loud applause from the audience.
The board’s action on Wednesday essentially took away the major use permit that the supervisors had granted the project last year, also under an appeal, Grant told Lake County News following the meeting.
Had it been successful, the Middletown project would have been the third Dollar General store built by Cross Development in Lake County. In 2015 the stores it built in Clearlake Oaks and Nice opened.
The company also is looking at building stores at sites in Lakeport and Lucerne.
In April, the Board of Supervisors denied Cross Development’s appeal of a Lake County Planning Commission decision to deny its store project in the Clear Lake Riviera due to issues related to size and lack of community fit.
Cross Development had previously had a plan for a store across from Kelseyville High School, which the planning commission denied in May 2015. In August 2015 the board upheld the commission’s decision when Cross Development appealed it.
A brief background of the project
The Middletown Dollar General store plan has faced steady community opposition since Cross Development first applied for permits for it in early 2015.
In a series of discussions held over the last two years by the Middletown Area Town Hall, residents questioned the project design, economic impacts on already struggling Middletown businesses – particularly in the wake of the Valley fire – and a lack of fit with the community’s unique character.
In April 2016, the Lake County Planning Commission denied the project’s major use permit, with key concerns being traffic volumes and consistency with the Middletown Area Plan.
The Board of Supervisors followed up by granting Cross Development’s appeal of that decision in a 3-2 vote in July.
However, the findings of fact in that 2016 appeal that the board approved granted the appeal and approved the major use permit “subject to further design and environmental review by the Planning Commission. The Board hereby remands this matter to the Planning Commission for said purposes.”
In turn, after taking up the matter once more, the planning commission in January denied the design review permit for a major use permit, with one of the key criticisms being that commissioners didn’t feel the design had been changed much at all to meet community design requirements.
At that time the commission also denied the necessary environmental document, the mitigated negative declaration.
The board’s decision on Wednesday to deny the appeal “shall not disturb” the commission’s January decision to deny the design review and to not issue a mitigated negative declaration, according to the findings document’s language.
Because those contingencies weren’t met, the project’s major use permit is gone, Grant explained to Lake County News following the Wednesday meeting.
Asked whether the project is finished, Grant replied, “What is accurate is the project as proposed has now had a final decision of the board. Finished is a bigger question than that.”
Grant said the company could choose to take the county to court and seek a judicial review of the decision.
It’s also been suggested in community meetings that the company could seek to pursue a building footprint less than the 8,000-square-foot threshold that triggered the major use permit process.
However, neither representatives of Cross Development nor Dollar General have so far indicated a willingness to depart from the standard 9,100-square-foot store size in order to push the Middletown store plan through.
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Board of Supervisors finalizes denial of Middletown Dollar General store project appeal
- Elizabeth Larson
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