New court date set for Healdsburg's largest potential development

A Sonoma County judge will decide whether Healdsburg city staff have done enough revisions to an environmental impact report for the planned $310 milion

Specifically, Sonoma County Superior Court Judge Rene Auguste Chouteau is expected to  hear arguments May 25 on whether the city adequately considered the feasibility of  smaller alternative plans for the project -- as ordered in 2009 in a decision on a lawsuit challenging the project's environmental impact report.

"What they didn't show was that a smaller project was not feasible," said Healdsburg resident Warren Watkins, who leads the opposition group "They were supposed to show that a smaller plan was not feasible and they didn't show that."

Watkins's group filed a lawsuit challenging the project's environmental impact report in late  2008, after Saggio Hills was already approved the city the first time.

In 2009, Superior Court Judge Robert Boyd decided in favor of HCSS. Boyd cited deficiencies in the city's environmental impact report in three areas: water demand of vegetation material to be planted for mitigation; failure to consider aesthetic impacts from Fox Pond; and "a failure to consider a sufficient range of viable, feasible alternatives," according to the ruling.

Of those, Watkins said water and aesthetic impacts were addressed sufficiently by the city, but the study of feasible alternatives was not. Watkins said he still wants to see proof that a smaller project --with less estate homes --would not be feasible.

"The judge told them to go back and do more work,"  Watkins said Wednesday. "We say they did some of it, but some of it they didn't do.

"They didn't totally comply with Judge Boyd's order," Watkins said.  The papers for the new court hearing were filed on Friday.

Saggio Hills, proposed for 70 estate homes and an 130-room resort hotel on 259 acres on the north end of Healdsburg, would sit on the hugest chunk of undeveloped land in the city.

Both the city council in January and the agreed that city staff had done enough research to determine that reducing the number of homes would not result in significantly lesser impacts to the environment.

"We hope this litigation by this very small group of dissenters ends very soon," said Saggio Hills developer Robert Green of Encinitas, on Wednesday. Green said he would decline additional comment because of the pending litigation.

In addition to Healdsburg council and commission members, other Saggio Hills supporters include a grassroots citizens group,  Healdsburg CARES (Healdsburg Community Alliance for Recreational and Environmental Solutions).

 Healdsburg CARES in 2008 filed an amicus brief in support of the city of Healdsburg in the CEQA lawsuit by HCSS.

Healdsburg CARES includes 125 local area residents as well as the Healdsburg and Geyserville Chambers of Commerce, the Healdsburg Youth Soccer League and the North County Council of Realtors.