Notebooks full of environmental studies for the proposed community south of
the University of California, Merced, fill a cardboard box in the corner of
the Merced County Farm Bureau's conference room.
But Farm Bureau Executive Director Diana Westmoreland Pedrozo is most
concerned with the community's final environmental impact report, bound in
two notebooks and open on the conference table.
She and others are worried because the 1,900-page EIR fails to suggest how to
make up for more than 2,000 acres of farmland the development would destroy.
Westmoreland Pedrozo was among several people who voiced concern about the
massive document to county planning commissioners Wednesday. Commissioners
recommended that supervisors certify the EIR as it is.
"By designating (the university community) as a new town with assumptions
that are not clear, this is a poor use of resources and taxpayer dollars,"
Westmoreland Pedrozo said last week.
Merced County UC Planner Bob Smith acknowledged that the EIR lacks
mitigation for lost agricultural land. However, he said the massive
environmental study is sufficient because it discloses the amount of ag
land that would be lost.
Under the California Environmental Quality Act, EIRs are supposed to disclose
impacts and how to mitigate those effects. The final EIR says the loss of ag
land in the UC community is unavoidable.
"The EIR has done an excellent job of describing the issues, of informing the
public of issues and describing the rationale behind the mitigation that exists,
and the rationale of mitigation that was not feasible," Smith said.
As planned, the university community would bring 11,600 homes to a 3,063-acre
site between Lake Road and the Le Grand and Fairfield canals.
The development, intended to help house and service the UC population, would
consume 2,133 acres of productive farmland, Westmoreland Pedrozo said. That
includes 654 acres of "prime" ag land and 390 acres of grazing area.
A draft version of the EIR suggested that UC community developers mitigate each
acre lost by purchasing and conserving ag land east of Merced. The conservation
land would form an "agricultural greenbelt," or buffer zone, between the
university community and Merced city limits.
However, county supervisors struck that language three years ago after landowners
said the wording could lower their land values or make their properties difficult
to sell or subdivide, Smith said.
Supervisors also said such mitigation wouldn't be fair unless all developers in
the county were held to the same standard.
Supervisors added a section to the EIR saying the university community's
developers must abide by any countywide, ag-land mitigation program
supervisors adopt in the future.
Smith said county planners have discussed a countywide plan, but not taken
action to approve one.
"Unless we have a countywide program, or something that is more regional in
nature, it's unfair for this project to singly be required to mitigate when
other projects in the city of Merced are not required to mitigate," Smith said.
Westmoreland Pedrozo, however, disagrees.
It would have cost developers about $5,000 per acre to buy conservation land
elsewhere, county officials said in 2001. But developers would simply tack
those costs onto the prices of their homes, Westmoreland Pedrozo said.
If 11,600 homes are built on about 3,000 acres, that's an average of about
four homes per acre. If the cost for an acre of ag land elsewhere is $5,000,
the extra cost per home would be an average $1,250.
That's a small price to pay in order to preserve ag land for future
generations, Westmoreland Pedrozo said. And, she said, the extra cost is
small enough that it wouldn't deter home buyers.
"People will pay what they have to pay," she said. "It's proven."
Westmoreland Pedrozo also said developers shouldn't be held to Merced city
standards, when, in fact, the university community site is on county land.
City and county officials are still negotiating whether the community will
remain unincorporated or be annexed by Merced.
"But it's part of the same market," Smith said. "It's part of the overall
development of the area."
To prevent the loss of farmland, bureau officials have suggested the
university community be built on the west side of Lake Road on both sides
of Bellevue Road, with Cardella Road as its southern boundary.
County and university planners considered that location, Smith said, but
turned away from it because of vernal pools and sensitive wildlife species
in the area.
The development will cause unavoidable problems wherever it's built,
Smith said.
"There wasn't an alternative that didn't affect agriculture, didn't affect
resources and didn't affect existing parcels," Smith said.
Still, that doesn't mean the county shouldn't ask more from developers,
Westmoreland Pedrozo said.
"We continue to make bad decisions today that will affect us in the
future," she said.
