Manteca leaders trying to dodge a lawsuit and avoid a referendum over the general plan to appease Delicato Family Wines may have made conditions ripe for an environmental lawsuit to be filed against the city.
The Delta-Sierra Chapter of the Sierra Club put Manteca leaders on notice Thursday that the general plan amendment justified with only an environmental impact addendum to satisfy the Delicato settlement could be challenged in court.
In a letter sent to the City of Manteca, the Sierra Club chapter noted:
*The rezoning of 498 acres in north Manteca was a major change.
*A significant shift in the future alignment of Roth Road east of Union Road is also a major change.
*And spelling out the pursuing establishment of a Roth Road interchange with Highway 99 that would become de facto official city policy over the next 20 years, the city is potentially making conditions ripe for hastened development of an area that hasn’t been adequately vetted in the general plan update adopted in July.
As such, the Sierra Club chapter contends the city does not meet the requirements spelled out in Section 15164b of the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) as to when a proposal to modify a general constitutes a “minor technical change of addendums.”
It is a critical point given if they aren’t minor, the environmental assessment conducted for the proposed general plan amendments as dictated by the settlement city leaders reached with Delicato was not robust enough and therefore would be insufficient.
A more muscular assessment, as the Sierra Club chapter contends, is called for as it appears the CEQA environmental study requirements haven’t been met based on potential impacts on traffic patterns, air quality, and working toward putting in place an interchange that clearly opens the door for urbanization of the rural area northeast of Manteca sooner than later.
Such an assessment would need to be more thorough and recirculated among various agencies with interests in the impacted areas such as Caltrans, the San Joaquin County Farm Bureau, and Catholic Charities’ Environmental Justice organization among others.
The item most likely triggering the most potential impacts is the Roth Road alignment and making the interchange a formal city policy goal.
As such, it is likely Delicato never pushed for it.
How it came up as part is a settlement designed to protect the winery from residential encroachment is the alignment of Roth Road would pass through property owned by Delicato that is planted in orchards and vineyards.
Delicato is already on a legal truck route via Frontage Road to French Camp Road to reach Highway 99.
The city, on the other hand, benefits from a less circuitous truck route to reach Highway 99 to help spur development of hundreds of acres of business park and industrial land north of Manteca they intend to annex.
That includes 188 acres of residential land being targeted for conversion to industrial uses in the pending general plan amendment.
The settlement spells out that Delicato would provide the right of way for the Roth Road alignment.
As such, that would open the door to situating an interchange in such a manner that meets Caltrans operational standards to be a mile apart from existing interchanges.
Currently, Highway 99 has two interchanges roughly two miles apart north of Manteca — one at French Camp Road and the other at Lathrop Road.
The Sierra Club chapter isn’t pursuing legal action, at least not yet anyway.
The letter does, however, provide a clear reading of the temperature of the environmental group that in the past has gone to court when they felt projects in San Joaquin County were circumventing CEQA.
The chapter’s letter states, “It is patently absurd for the City to claim that these changes would have no significant environmental impact, as the EIR Addendum does. The City must study whether there could be impacts related to these very specific changes.
“Instead, this deficient EIR Addendum repeats over and over the unsubstantiated claim that ‘There would be no change to the level of significance of these impacts or new significant impacts associated with the Modified Project. There are no changed circumstances or new information that meets the standard for requiring further environmental review under CEQA Guidelines Section 15162.’”
The largest local example of the Sierra Club chapter pursuing legal action on environmental findings was their challenge to various aspects of what is now the 15,001 home planned community known as River Islands at Lathrop.
And although the Sierra Club and other environmental groups involved in the litigation ended up happy with changes Cambay Group made especially with commitments to protect the San Joaquin River and wildlife, it delayed approval of the mega-project for a good two years.
A legal fight in the courts is something Manteca’s civic leadership literally can’t’ afford timewise.
That’s because conditions of the settlement agreement requires the general plan amendment to be legally in place by mid-August.
That’s in order for the growth referendum that Delicato qualified for the ballot to basically reject the entire general plan to be yanked from the Nov. 5 general election.
The deadline for Delicato to do so is 88 days before the election date.
The settlement agreement also calls for Delicato to drop a separate lawsuit they have filed against the city over the general plan adoption if the conditions outlined in the settlement agreement are in place basically 6½ months from now.
To contact Dennis Wyatt, email dwyatt@mantecabulletin.com
