A 25-unit proposed development in unincorporated San Mateo is facing fierce opposition from the Baywood Park Homeowners’ Association over what the group calls the potential for “lethal dust clouds” during construction.
The group delivered a 22-page report to the San Mateo County Planning Commission detailing what it calls inefficiencies in the draft environmental impact report.
The DEIR failed to reveal full information on impacts of enormous grading and thousands of truck trips to tear out area hilltop which will result in excessive truck traffic and dangerously degraded air quality levels, Dr. Gerard Ozanne said.
Ozanne is president of the Baywood Park Homeowners’ Association.
The group wants the Planning Commission to direct the study to be revised and recirculated in its entirety.
Jim Eggemeyer, the county’s deputy director of planning and building, said the group’s concerns have been forwarded to its consultant and will be integrated into the next step of the EIR process.
County planners will present a staff report to the Planning Commission in December, who will then comment on the EIR for the Ascension Heights project, Eggemeyer said. The property is adjacent to the College of San Mateo on Polhemus Road and Parrott Drive in unincorporated county land. CSM is in the middle of a major construction project also but has managed to contain its dust well, Ozanne said.
“We formally submitted these concerns seven years ago. Neighbors are terrified that county management has allowed this study to be so profoundly inadequate,” said Gerald McClellan, a BPHA board member. “Our only recourse now is to ask the Planning Commission and Board of Supervisors require genuine community involvement and direct proper environmental studies to ensure safe and reasonable developments in our neighborhood.”
It is way early in the process, Eggemeyer said, and it will be up to the Planning Commission to determine whether the environmental documents were prepared in an appropriate manner and whether the homeowners’ group has legitimate concerns.
In its 22-page report to the county, the homeowners’ group contends the traffic study does not include several intersections and that health impacts from the estimated pollution have been largely ignored.
The Ascension Heights project will sit on about 13 acres.
Bill Silverfarb can be reached by e-mail: silverfarb@smdailyjournal.com or by phone: (650) 344-5200 ext. 106. |