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Home Resource Center In the News Home Greenbelt Alliance in the News |
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Greenbelt Alliance In the News
July 14, 2004 Only senior housing
for Antioch's Sand Creek area, council says Subheading By Sarah KruppSTAFF WRITER ANTIOCH - The only houses this City Council will approve on some 2,700 acres on Antioch's southern fringe will be for seniors, city leaders said Tuesday. In a 3-2 vote, the council decided to suspend planning to build for the parcels that make up what is referred to as Future Urban Area No. 1, or the Sand Creek Focus Area, which extends south from Empire Mine Road. Council members said they will only consider senior housing, which should cause few impacts to traffic and schools. They had discussed the issue at a meeting earlier this month, but formalized the decision this week. "The citizens have made it very clear. Unless and until the infrastructure improves, senior housing ... is the only consideration. Beyond that, the Sand Creek Specific Plan as far as I am concerned is dead," Mayor Donald Freitas said. Council members Brian Kalinowski and Jim Conley dissented. Kalinowski argued for more specific restrictions on FUA-1 development to ensure that housing wouldn't be built without road and school improvements in place. Conley said the council's resolution should suspend all housing, even for seniors. The proposed development of up to 4,000 houses on FUA-1 had riled residents fed up with traffic as well as environmentalists who contend that much of the land is sensitive and should be preserved. The Greenbelt Alliance and a local resident group, Citizens for a Better Antioch, had promised a referendum on the plan if it were approved. The plan will not be completely discarded as council members had early indicated, but they said that they consider it a null document. A referendum that rescinded a proposed apartment complex in June convinced the council that the FUA-1 plan would also be overturned. Residents fighting the apartments complained they would create more traffic and further crowd southeast Antioch's crowded schools. Conley believes that putting a complete moratorium on development on FUA-1 would force developers to lean on politicians who influence transportation funding. "I don't want to authorize another new house until Highway 4 gets funded. Hopefully, East County is upset enough so maybe now we can really get some political pressure on Brentwood, Oakley and the county," Conley said Wednesday. "I want the people who own the property, who travel in different circles than you and I, to put some political pressure on people who control the purse strings," he added. Kalinowski also believed that the policy fell short. He said development needs to be clearly tied to infrastructure improvements rather than leaving it up to future councils' discretion to decide. "It's too vague," Kalinowski said Wednesday. "It gives people all kinds of opportunity to interpret it in different ways. It is all based on what the City Council determines." One of the dozen or so owners in FUA-1 opposed the city's plan to shelf
development. Speaking for the Zeka group, which controls some 640 acres
in FUA-1, Allan Moore said that the city is violating its property rights. ### |
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