LOIS HENRY: City sued over development! No one's shocked
| Sunday, Oct 18 2009 12:30 PM
Last Updated Sunday, Oct 18 2009 12:30 PM
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Hey! The Sierra Club sued Bakersfield over The Canyons housing development!
OK, it's not exactly the "Who shot J.R.?" surprise ending to our long community nightmare over this project. (Meaning it wasn't unexpected.)
But it's important to understand the underpinnings of this suit so we know what's on the horizon. Because if we don't get our planning act together, we could lose a lot more taxpayer money in similar lawsuits.
"The primary area of contention is global warming," Gordon Nipp, local rep for the Kern-Kaweah chapter of the Sierra Club told me. "There needs to be some mitigation for climate change, and the city is doing none whatsoever."
Before some of you out there start stomping around and gritting your teeth that global warming is a load of enviro-hooey, new state laws mean business on this issue and it would behoove local officials to pay attention to those laws
I've mentioned before how AB 32 (requiring the state to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2020) and SB 375 (requiring cities to plan in a more walkable, public transit-oriented manner) mean the sprawl party is over.
And how the attorney general has shown a hair trigger for suing cities whose general plans don't adhere to those laws.
All that apparently hasn't phased the city of Bakersfield (and to a lesser extent the county of Kern) when it comes to pushing through more business-as-usual developments.
It's true that the details for how to implement AB 32 and SB 375 are still being worked out. But, come on, we know the intent and ignoring it won't make it go away.
Especially with Nipp watching over the city's and county's shoulders.
Or the attorney general's office, which sent two representatives here in early summer for a little howdy-do over our general plan update (still in the works).
Afterward, one of the deputy AGs, Harrison Pollak, sent the city and county a lovely thank-you letter for the kind welcome, he told me.
By the way, he said in his letter, you are currently required under the California Environmental Quality Act to analyze the impacts of global warming and climate change.
"That was contrary to the position the city had taken in letters they had sent," he told me back then.
I'd take that as a fairly direct message if I were the city, kind of like finding a dead fish on your doorstep.
Several months later, however, The Canyons' EIR sailed through the Planning Commission and was OK'd by the City Council last month with zippo for greenhouse gas mitigation.
"The EIR said it emitted something like 24,000 tons a year of greenhouse gases," Nipp, a retired math professor, said. "Well I can run the computer model just as well as them, better probably since I'm not being paid to come up with small numbers, and it was more like 42,000 tons per year."
The county is doing a somewhat better job on this issue, he said, by requiring a 29 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions for every development. But they're still approving what amounts to sprawl, including the 1,100-house project by Bakersfield Land Investment in the extreme northwest. (Stay tuned for another Sierra Club lawsuit on that one as well.)
But back to The Canyons lawsuit.
Bakersfield Planning Director Jim Eggert told me that while the city doesn't mitigate for greenhouse gases, per se, it does so indirectly by requiring zero air quality impact.
That sounds reasonable, except we're talking about very different emissions.
Air quality mitigation looks at nitrogen oxide (NOx), reactive organic gases and particulate matter. Greenhouse gas mitigation looks mainly at carbon dioxide (C02).
So you may reduce a little C02 because you're reducing NOx. But, Nipp said, no one knows how much you're reducing because they aren't analyzing the numbers as they should in the EIR.
Nipp reminded me that the city only began requiring air quality mitigation after the Sierra Club sued several developments over the issue.
"Well, we're going to sue if there's no greenhouse gas mitigation and we'll sue if there's no farmland mitigation when that's an issue," he promised.
Yup, planning by lawsuit -- still the Kern County way.
Opinions expressed in this column are those of Lois Henry, not The Bakersfield Californian. Her column appears Wednesdays and Sundays. Comment at people.bakersfield.com/home/Blog/noholdsbarred, call her at 395-7373 or e-mail lhenry@bakersfield.com
