|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
An assisted living housing project that would take the place of Sloat Garden Center on Diablo Road in Danville is set to continue moving forward following the Town Council’s denial of an appeal submitted by a neighboring resident that was the subject of more than three hours of discussion earlier this month.
The council voted 4-0 at its July 1 meeting – with Vice Mayor Karen Stepper absent that evening – to deny an appeal of the Planning Commission’s earlier approval of The Ivy assisted living project for the site currently occupied by the garden center near the intersection of El Cerro Blvd. and Diablo Road.Â
The appeal was submitted by John Phillips, a Danville resident on a neighboring property who raised concerns about environmental hazards found in past studies of the site, asking that the council call off the project until those concerns were addressed, and calling for the town to make those earlier reports publicly accessible.
In particular, Phillips said he was concerned with the lack of a Phase 2 CEQA review for the project, pointing to contaminants found in the Phase 1 and limited investigation report including dieldrin and chlordane levels exceeding the maximum recommended by the Department of Toxic Substances Control (DTSC).
“The investigation, limited to storage areas and a drainage ditch, likely missed lead, arsenic, PFAS, or residual hydrocarbons across the 2.39-acre site,” Phillips wrote in the appeal. “The seller-conducted Phase I raises impartiality concerns, and reports are not public. Excavation for a three-story, 39-foot building risks releasing toxins, endangering residents and memory care seniors.”
The presence of excessive levels of other contaminants such as lead and arsenic would contradict the findings in a limited investigation report of the site prepared by Terracon, which found levels of those chemicals to be below the threshold required for residential, commercial, and construction purposes. However, the report did recommend remediation efforts to address what were found to be dieldrin and chlordane levels that exceeded the residential threshold, specifically excavation and extraction of the contaminated soil by a licensed contractor overseen by an environmental professional.
That recommendation resulted in a June 11 email to the town and developers from the DTSC, inviting participation in a voluntary remediation process for the site that would go beyond the removal of 115 cubic yards of dieldrin contaminated soil that Terracon had recommended.
“Based on the former presence of a UST (underground storage tank) with no documented closure, excavation of buried pesticide containers and soil with no documented closure, and soil remaining onsite with dieldrin concentrations exceeding applicable screening levels, DTSC believes that further remediation is necessary to protect public health,” wrote Marikka Hughes, Bay Area branch chief for DTSC.
Hughes noted that the site does not appear to have ever been used for residential purposes previously, having initially been developed for agricultural use and being home to landscaping and gardening companies since 1970.
In the ensuing exchange, town staff sought clarity on whether or not developers were required to operate under the oversight of DTSC.
“Given the proposed sensitive uses at the site and surrounding residential properties, DTSC recommends that the City require, as a condition of approving the development application, that O&I submit a Request for Agency Oversight Application and perform the remediation under DTSC’s oversight to ensure that the site is cleaned up appropriately and to applicable standards,” wrote DTSC hazardous substances engineer Nicole Yuen in a June 24 follow-up email. “However, it is up to the City to determine whether to impose such a condition.”
Yuen’s email was in response to an inquiry from Associate Planner Riley Anderson-Barrett asking if the town was required to undergo remediation overseen by DTSC and indicating that the town would prefer to work with a third party environmental professional.
The Town Council, joined by property owner Gary Parsons and Colin Bagwell, a representative for project applicant O&I development, provided an overview of the site’s history and changes to the proposed project that were aimed at addressing other resident concerns, such as privacy, construction noise, parking and traffic.
Phillips was joined by a total of 10 fellow concerned citizens during the public hearing portion of the meeting, with a total of 13 people submitting speaker cards at the live meeting and six written comments received ahead of the meeting.
“We cherish our neighborhood and each other, and in the past, we have worked diligently to fight off the development of a commercial piano studio on the corner of our street and a condominium development across the street,” wrote Rosa Fierro, who lives on a street adjacent to the property in question. “It is very sad and unfortunate that we will now have to stare at a 3-story building , which is being developed by a company from Los Angeles who really doesn’t care about any of us, our neighborhood or our town. The entire back of my home is all windows, and now I will have to stare at this building every day.”
Fierro also echoed Phillips’ concerns about the contaminated soil on the property, specifically the risk of windborne contamination to neighboring properties.
“I am hoping you will consider their warnings and require a full environmental impact report and environment clean-up of the site under their supervision,” Fierro wrote. “Please overturn the approval and require these issues be resolved. We hope that you will require the developer to use a state mandated company for the testing and not a private company of their choosing so that the testing and cleanup are unprejudiced.”
While the council did not ultimately approve the appeal that would have overturned the Planning Commission’s May 28 decision to approve the project, council members did voice their support for residents’ concerns and for additional remediation efforts. As it stands, remediation of the contaminated soil is set to be addressed as the project moves forward.
“The remediation of the existing on-site contaminants would be addressed in a Work Plan which would: delineate impacted soils, establish appropriate methods of excavation and removal of soil, establish health, safety and air monitoring protocols, detail sampling and reporting procedures, and provide a plan for transportation and disposal of the excavated material,” Town Manager Tai Williams wrote in a staff report for the July 1 meeting.
“The Work Plan would receive oversight either by California’s Department of Toxic Substances Control (DTSC), a County monitoring program, or a third party consultant with expertise in hazardous materials remediation managed by the Town,” she continued.
It remained unclear as of the July 1 meeting whether or not the DTSC or a different party would be tasked with oversight of remediation efforts.
Another point of discussion between the council and town staff was a new state law that went into effect the day of the meeting – AB 130 – which created a new CEQA exemption that affects numerous housing projects that meet certain criteria, including The Ivy project according to City Attorney Robert Ewing.
Councilmember Robert Storer, who made the motion to deny the appeal, first requested further testing specifically for airborne toxins to further inform what remediation efforts would be required.
While the project is still set to move forward – with council members expressing frustration about the new state law and their increasingly limited jurisdictions over new housing projects – the Town Council approved the resolution denying Phillips’ appeal with some amendments. Those include requiring a phase 2 study for the project with the applicant covering the costs of a third party review of the remediation plan for the property, and language specifying why the project warrants a CEQA exemption under the new AB 130.
