The Sacramento County Board of Supervisors pulled up just short Tuesday afternoon of voting to approve 282 homes for three developments in Rancho Murieta North.

The board certified the environmental impact report for the projects, and comments by a majority of the board indicated approval of the projects is likely.

The vote was 4-1 to accept the environmental document, with only Supervisor Don Nottoli, who represents Murieta, opposing it. Final action on the projects was delayed until a handful of conditions on the developments can be worked out.

The board scheduled its next action on the proposals for 3 p.m. Dec. 5.

One issue debated at the session was whether the projects should have to await the upcoming county-ordered study on the amount of development Murieta's infrastructure can support. That study, expected back by February or March, could be a prelude to a full update of the community's development master plan.

Nottoli said he wouldn't back the projects Tuesday but wanted to await the study, saying it would give the board "a better idea of some of the impacts."

Supervisor Jimmie R. Yee challenged Nottoli's claim, saying he didn't want to go "back and back and over and over again" rehashing the issues. Yee said the developers had made considerable changes already. "I don't want to see this whole can of worms reopened" as a result of the delay, he said.

But in the end, Yee said he would support delaying the decision until March.

The other supervisors -- a majority of the board -- were ready to vote Tuesday, and they made comments favoring the developments.

Supervisor Roberta MacGlashan said the delay "will trigger a new set of questions, challenges, perhaps additional environmental review, and I think it could easily be another year before we were at the point we're at today."

She agreed that the developers had made many changes to address concerns expressed by opponents. "I'm not sure what more they can do," she said.

Supervisor Susan Peters called the developments "a win" for Rancho Murieta. "Since I've been here, we've never had a project with any more board hearings or longer board hearings," she said.

Supervisor Roger Dickinson said the question is whether the county "should honor an existing community plan ... or declare a de-facto moratorium."

He questioned whether the analysis would be used for the stated reasons or would just be a delaying tactic.

The issues have been "exhaustively aired ... and addressed," he said.

Dickinson criticized those who attacked the projects because they aren't custom homes.

"I'm not sure that's a distinction that in reality bears out," he said. "But whatever one's view of that may be, a half-a-million-dollar home, whether it looks like the one next door or not, is a pretty darned nice place. So I don't think that these homes are going to be other than attractive, and they certainly ... won't be any degradation to the surrounding and existing homes."

The analysis will look at existing water and sewer studies and validate them, and staff will analyze and update the 1984 master plan to show what has been built already. That would allow projections for how much more development can be accommodated.

About 135 people were present at the start of the hearing, but that number dwindled as the 3 1/2-hour session ran on.

Twelve people testified earlier in the hearing, all but one opposing the proposed developments. Eleven of the speakers were Murietans, many of them involved with the Rancho Murieta Development Concerned Citizens Committee, which has challenged the developers' plans for six years.

John Taylor, an attorney for the developers, told the supervisors that testimony from Murietans opposing the developments had been "inaccurate on the facts but very high on the emotions."

Saying he wanted to deal in facts, Taylor walked through nine key points, outlining areas where he said opponents have misrepresented facts, including letters from government officials that were solicited by the RMDCCC and presented as supporting their cause.

He called the development effort "a constantly shifting goal post," explaining, "As soon as you resolve one issue ... another issue quickly sprung up ... and that has continued on and on and on."

He quoted a News & Review story last April by RMDCCC leader Candy Chand in which he said she wrote of the group's efforts: "Our unofficial motto soon became 'You throw enough pasta at the wall and sooner or later something will stick.'"

In her comments to the board, which drew some of the strongest applause, Chand said, "I don't think your mission is to make sure these developers have a great big profit margin. ... Your mission is to defend (the California Environmental Quality Act), to protect the citizens of Sacramento County and to protect the environment."

Nottoli emphasized that one of the conditions of the development is that a long-awaited traffic management plan, owed to the county for more than a decade by other developers, must be delivered before the projects can proceed.

The Residences of Murieta Hills West and East are located in the area bounded by Guadalupe, Puerto and Escuela drives. They were originally one project and are now two, each with 99 lots. Warmington Homes is the developer for Residences East and the Woodside Group is developing Residences West.

The following information about the projects comes from the
environmental impact report for the projects prepared by the county Department of Environmental Review and Assessment.

Residences West consists of 59.9 acres and Residences East is 86.2 acres. Together they have 70 acres of open space, about 48 percent of the total acreage. This includes a 30-plus-acre oak woodland.

The planning department recommended approval of the Residences projects after developers made grading and other changes.

The Retreat, located near the Country Club, consists of 84 lots on three pieces of land totaling 30.3 acres. The developer is Cassano Kamilos Homes.

The planning department does not recommend approval for the Retreat project because the property was planned for higher density development than what's proposed.

All of the projects will pay fees to comply with the county
requirement for affordable housing instead of providing onsite
low-income housing.

The video of the meeting and supporting documents are available here.