Update at bottom.
I was recently in North Carolina, near Ashville in a holler known as Pinners Cove. We here in the Palo Cedro area have a lot in common with the good folks of Pinners Cove. Beside the fact that we share the same initials, Pinners Cove is a rural neighborhood where the houses sit on large parcels, and where real-estate prices are comparable to ours.
Sierra Nevada plopped a brewery down just outside of Ashville that is easily twice the size of the Chico plant. What almost caused me to drive off Pinners Cove Road though were the red and white signs on every property that read “Say No to 288 Town Houses, No Rezoning”.
If you have been on Boyle Road and noticed the red and white signs stating, “Say No to 166 Home Subdivision” you probably get my drift. It was a moment in a parallel universe, a moment where I realized we are not alone. People across the country are fighting poor planning and urban sprawl. Admittedly there is a housing shortage in many places. What citizens are asking for is well thought out, state of the art planning.
Locals in their hollers and folks on their ridges are showing up at planning commission meetings and getting yard signs. Some people I talk to say, “Well it’s coming, you can’t stop progress”. I agree, it’s just that my definition of “progress” is different than theirs. We need to accommodate the onslaught in a way that utilizes smart planning.
Those good people in Pinners Cove are trying to stop a zoning change, and the residents of the Boyle Road area are in the same boat.
Geography is different here in the west. When I stepped out of my rented Toyota in Pinners Cove, I stepped in mud. In case you have forgotten, mud is created when water, usually rain, mixes with dirt. I waded across a running creek to get to my son’s cabin. Here in Shasta County, there are some big differences, and water and fire come foremost to mind. We clearly have not enough water and too much fire. Planning a subdivision under these circumstances takes a crystal ball, an imagination, critical thinking and a real ability to look at the recent past to foresee the future.
The folks in the Boyle Road area have been fighting Tierra Robles Subdivision since 2005. They call themselves PATROL, People Against Tierra Robles Over Developed Lands.
Tierra Robles is a so-called ‘planned community’. It would take over the area encircled by Boyle Road, Deschutes Road and Old Alturas Road. In order for Tierra Robles to be built, the zoning in this area would need to change, lot sizes minimized. That kind of precedent would open up a lot of undeveloped land in this part of the county. A zoning change spells urban sprawl, leap frog development; LA right here east of Redding.
In the beginning it was a normal fight to stop a normal subdivision, but as the years dragged on, things have clearly changed. We saw the Carr Fire take out 1,000 homes on the west side of Redding in August 2018. We watched the mad dash out of Paradise that made international news, our north state neighbors running for their lives as a fire consumed their town at the rate of a football field every minute, and stunningly all in the month of November. These fires are deadly.
Now we are in a drought not exceeded in the last 1200 years. Bella Vista Water District (BVWD) is pumping from the ground, not one drop is coming from the river. Everyone is rationed. The developer, Shasta Red, named Bella Vista Water District (BVWD) in the Final Environmental Impact Report (FEIR) as its primary water source. It cited Clear Creek Water District (CCWD) as its secondary source. A secondary source is required to break ground. CCWD has since sent a letter stating that it will not sell water to Tierra Robles. It’s hard for anyone to believe that there is enough water for this development.
Boyle Road is what I call a worm hole. These are roads that get a person from point A to point B by circumventing lights and stop signs.
Palo Cedro is known for its schools. There are five all together, and a learning center. These schools have good reputations and draw hundreds of kids daily from across the county. Last year there were more than 2500 students registered in Palo Cedro schools. We can be proud that the schools in our area have such good reputations. Yet out of all these schools the only one with a bus barn is Junction Elementary School. Foothill High School and Chrysalis Charter School have some students bussed in and out every day but those buses don’t stay. They arrive twice a day. All other students are brought by passenger vehicle.
Let’s consider the scenario of a fire in October, Monday morning, and all the schools are in session. A fire is coming from the north. We know it can happen because it did on October 18, 1999. But this is 2022 and fires behave differently. Here come the parents to get their kids. How are they getting to Palo Cedro? The worm hole, Boyle Road. Some might think to take Old 44. They might take Highway 44 but if the county has the developer put a stoplight in front of Holiday Market, as part of the mitigation, people will be inclined to take Boyle or Old 44. That light will slow things way down in Palo Cedro, and when a fire is bearing down, time is essential.
Meanwhile, residents of Bella Vista are evacuating down Deschutes Road. Many others are evacuating south on Old Oregon Trail. The people who live on the Boyle Road corridor will hit gridlock as the fire bears down from the north.
We have not planned for this. We haven’t planned for this happening this coming October, or in five years. Even Paradise had a plan. We don’t. A fire evacuation study gave the people in the areas of Boyle, Deschutes and Old Alturas a three-and-a-half-hour evacuation time to get out of harm’s way. When you factor in the schools and the communities to our north you can see where that number came from.
And this does not consider a subdivision. Not 166 more homes, many with grannie units, all with at least two vehicles. And this doesn’t include other developments that would spring up because of the precedent set by the Tierra Robles zoning change. This scenario is frighteningly real.
I don’t know the grounds on which the good people of Pinners Cove North Carolina are fighting their zoning change. I don’t know if there is a threat to their lives and safety. But in the case of Tierra Robles there is. The threat is dire, it’s real and the residents are right to ask the hard questions and expect the county officials to work with, not against them.
Placing a subdivision in that area is dangerous, shortsighted, and very poor planning.
PATROL and the local residents will face the planning commission on Wednesday, April 6 at 3 p.m. in the Shasta County Board of Supervisors Chambers. They will fight for safety, water, and good planning and try to stop Tierra Robles and its 166 homes.
Update:
The Shasta County Planning Commission meeting regarding Tierra Robles Planned Development ran from 3:00 to 9:20 pm on April 6th. Citizens of the Boyle Road area had excellent arguments that were well researched and well defended. Bob Grosch from BURN (Boyle Uniting Responsible Neighbors) showed a comprehensive power point of the Tierra Robles Subdivision and how it is actually not fire safe. PATROL members illustrated evacuation, water, fire and the Vineyard Decision, which the Planning Commission was not familiar with although they had been given documentation through a letter from the environmental law firm, Remi, Moose Manley. David Coxey from Bella Vista Water, a neutral party, painted a bleak picture of the water situation.
The Developer, Shasta Red, also had solid arguments that were well defended. They were allowed to speak many times after the public comment was closed. At one point the planning commission asked the developer to volunteer to require the Tierra Robles Home Owners Association to do more weed eating. But of course, in the long run the project was sent on to the Shasta County Board of Supervisors as a staff recommendation. Even though members were “concerned about fire evacuation”. The vote was 3-0. Two members did not attend the meeting because they are involved in the project and had to recuse themselves.
This could have gone one of three ways: the FEIR could have been returned to the developer for more work, or the Planning Commission could have dumped the project because of the big problems with fire evacuation. But they realized that they can’t fix Boyle Road so they passed it on to the Board of Supervisors. Wait what? Okay sure. See you at the Board of Supervisors meeting. Stay tuned for updates.
For more information visit shastapatrol.org
Sara Hoxie lives and works in the Palo Cedro area.
