On Monday’s Agenda for the Sutter Creek City Council meeting was an item that drew quite a crowd. The Goals and Policies Document regarding the Community Facilities District and Powder House Estates was discussed as well as the concerns expressed regarding  a Mello Roos Bond, specifically the problems that Ione experienced with the program. Mark Northcross spoke to Ione’s problem and explained that the Bond money went in before the developer began the project and money promised by the developer never materialized. The difference with Sutter Creek would be that the Bonds would not be sold until the Public Improvements were under construction, and largely completed. The cost of public improvements includes approximately $4 million, and would be financed up to 75%, the developer of Powder House Estates would be paying $1 million out of pocket.

The Jackson Planning Commission will meet tonight to review Notices of Intent to Develop. In February of 2007 the Planning Commission recommended to the City Council that they adopt 68 HEUs for the upcoming year, which was the number of HEU’s needed for Jackson Hills to complete phase 1 of their project. The City Council after some deliberation chose to set the allocation at 106, based on the same formula used in 2005 of spreading the remaining sewer capacity over three years. Staff then advertised for request for Notices of Intent to Develop and four different developers responded by the March 31st deadline.

Representatives of Jackson, Sutter Creek, Ione, ARSA, the AWA, as well as HDR all joined together yesterday to discuss short term improvements to meet the needs of local wastewater demands. In the audience representatives of the Foothill Conservancy, Present in the audience were Nolte Engineering of the Jackson Hills project, Castle Oaks Golf course, JTS Communities, and the Gold Rush and Wicklow Way subdivisions. County Administrative Officer Patrick Blacklock facilitated the meeting while representatives from HDR Engineering Inc. summarized the results of the last few meetings and went over some of the steps that can be taken in the future to ensure capacity for the development that is already on the books.

In case you have been wondering what is happening with Buena Vista Rancheria’s request to the Federal Government to build and operate a sewer plant- the answer, according to John Tinger with the EPA is that the permit, and the project, are on hold. According to Tinger “As the Tribe has agreed to do additional work on the Tribal Environmental Impact Report, the NPDES permit application is on hold until the TEIR has been completed.” Tinger states that his department anticipates that there will be another public notice on the NPDES permit to allow for comment on any additional information collected during the TEIR process, as that information relates to the NPDES permit.