| | Published March 12th, 2014
| Hetfield General Development Plan ApprovedDoes not include emergency access to Sanders Ranch
| | By Sophie Braccini |  | | Courtesy Staff Report |
A consensus was relatively easy for the Moraga Planning Commission to reach on March 3 for the approval of the Hetfield Estates General Development Plan and Conditional Use Permit. The use permit lists 175 conditions of approval that have been extensively discussed. The final elements that drew the most concern from neighbors were street lights, parking, and an emergency vehicle access road that could provide emergency access to the back of Sanders Ranch.
Hetfield Estates is a development proposed by John Wyro along a new private street extending from Hetfield Place, paralleling Larch Creek and Sanders Drive, into a hilly 58-acre lot. The project met with serious and organized opposition from neighbors on Sanders Drive who stressed that the area, with its faults and landslides, was zoned high risk and not appropriate for development. However, the developer included remediation measures that were sufficient to obtain approval in 2012 for seven new homes of up to 4,000 square feet.
Neighbors spoke out against parts of the plan. "I was disappointed, when I read the staff report, to see the access road, the parking lot and a bunch of lights," said Daran Santi.
An emergency vehicle access road had been proposed by Wyro as a benefit to the town, connecting the Hetfield property to Sanders Ranch for emergency purposes only (fire or medical).
Planning commissioner Teresa Onoda, who lives in Sanders Ranch, said that she walked the proposed site and noticed that the path starts very flat, goes through wet land, and then takes a very steep climb to reach the end of Sanders Ranch, making it hard to build and requiring a lot of grading. "I talked to the president of Sanders Ranch (Homeowners Association)," she added, "and he said that the board has no interest what-so-ever in (creating an emergency route)." The commission decided that the access road would not be constructed, that there would simply be a trail connecting Hetfield Estates to the Old Moraga Ranch Trail. The commissioners also asked that an easement be maintained along the trail so that in the event the fire district required the construction of an emergency access route to Sanders Ranch, it could be done.
The road along the new development was designed to be very narrow to limit grading. Street parking will not be permitted except in three pocket spaces and a four-space lot at the end.
Naturalist Malcolm Sproul asked that the curb of the road on its creek side be rounded. "Small vertebrates in particular, rodents, snakes, salamanders and even baby quails, can't hop vertical curbs," said Sproul. "If they can't go up, they follow along; when they get to a storm drain they fall in and can't get out." Sproul added that on the side of the road the homes will be on, there would be enough driveways that small animals could find ways to cross.
The emergency vehicle access road was removed from the plan, parking spaces were approved as proposed and limited to seven, and lights remained despite opposition from neighbors since lighting is an engineering department requirement for safety. Rounded curbs were added along the open space side of the road to allow the safe wandering of small wildlife.
The Moraga Town Council will discuss the formation of a Geologic Hazard and Abatement District that would be responsible for management of landslides and other geologic hazards on the property's open space parcel. New homeowners will be advised that the area was formerly zoned high risk and will contribute to the district and a homeowners' association.
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Lamorinda Weekly, Moraga CA