Despite the best arguments of the residents and owner of the Westlake Village Mobile Park, the Visalia City Council denied their attempts to derail construction of a 28-pump gas station and car wash 160 feet from their homes.
The 3-2 decision to ratify the previous decision of the city’s Planning Commission came during a meeting held Tuesday, December 3. It was a final attempt to force the project’s developer to reevaluate the potential impact to residents of the mobile home park, many of whom are at-risk due to age and illness. The project – on the southwest corner of the intersection of Visalia Parkway and Mooney Boulevard – is also around 1,000 feet from the Perry Family Park and Cottonwood Creek Elementary School.
The two votes against rejecting the appeal came from council members Emmanuel Hernandez Soto and Steve Nelsen.
Westlake residents expressed their intention to sue to stop the development.
Box Store is a Done Deal
The project is far more than a gas station and car wash. Anchoring the entire development is a 170,000 square-foot Sam’s Club box store. The complex will also include a fast food restaurant with drive-through service. One thousand parking spaces will service the retail center. Together, the gas station and the restaurant’s drive-through can accommodate around 200 vehicles.
The appeals filed against the development only target the gas station and car wash. The store and restaurant require no approval from the Planning Commission. Those plans can go ahead with or without construction of the adjacent fueling station and car wash, as city planning staff reports Fresno-based developer Visalia Parkway Partners, LLC’s plans comply with applicable building and zoning codes.
However, those who hoped to force better environmental mitigation measures for the project still have a list of complaints about it. They brought them to the forefront of the city’s attention during a Planning Commission meeting held on September 23. Assistant city planner Cristobal Carrillo described their objections.
“At that meeting, significant public comment was provided by a lot of residents of Westlake Village, citing environmental impacts to the elderly residents of the mobile home park,” he said. “Specifically, they had concerns about the location and operation of the service station, the adequacy of the analysis of health risks assessment (HRA), which is a study that analyzed the emission from the proposed gas station.”
Developer Changed Plans to Suit Neighbors
The project got approval at a second meeting of the Planning Commission held October 14. It was granted following reassurances from Lars Anderson & Associates representative Derek Finnegan that the HRA showed no appreciable health risks to residents of Westlake from toxic emissions and vehicle exhaust.
The developer also added mitigation measures to reduce the project’s impact. They include moving the gas pumps further from the boundary with Westlake Village, an 8-foot brick wall between the properties, cutoffs on lighting on buildings and in the parking lot, and added trees to block noise to the south and west.
The plan’s opponents, however, wanted a bigger buffer between themselves and the possible source of environmental pollutants. San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District guidelines, which are factored into the HRA, recommend a 300-foot setback between sources of pollutants and at-risk populations. Plans approved by the city have a 160-foot setback after it was widened.
Opponents Want More, Better Environmental Protection
The 300-foot setback mentioned by the pollution control district is not a strict rule. While it is recommended, it is left to the city to make the ultimate decision. At the city council meeting Tuesday, it decided the 160-foot offset offered by the developer is sufficient to protect those living in the mobile home park.
The offset is a key item in both appeals requesting the council overturn the planning decision. Carrillo described the terms of the appeals broadly.
“There were a lot of claims presented in those appeals touching on a wide range of topics,” he said. “Overall, I think they mention the inadequacy of the HRA analysis; impacts from noise, traffic; public notice requirements; CEQA analysis. Lots of stuff.”
Jonathan Popkin, whose family has owned Westlake Village since the 1980s, said the city failed to adequately inform neighbors a plan for the property adjacent to his was underway. When the property was originally pegged as the site of a future box store in 2013, Popkin said he was given weeks of notice and time to respond. This time he heard nothing from City Hall.
“This time I only found out what was going on three weeks ago from my residents,” he said. “I didn’t receive a single notice about anything that was being proposed, any gas stations. I’m not one to hinder progress, but I do think that, in all fairness, all those affected need to be able to have their say, and keep it an open discussion.”
He said building one of the county’s largest fueling stations next to his property will undermine years of work spent keeping the park a garden-like setting.
“I spend a lot of time trying to preserve Westlake Village as a senior park in all its beauty, with the lakes and everything, and with the water restrictions, it’s been very difficult,” he said.
The work he must do includes monitoring the coming and going of federally-protected Canada geese that live on the property for annual reports to the state Department of Fish and Wildlife. The presence of the protected species was apparently not included in the city’s analysis of the project’s environmental impact.
Attorney: Project’s Environmental Reports Inadequate
Attorney William Hanna, who represents Westlake Village owner Popkin, says a project of this scale should be subject to a full environmental impact report (EIR). Instead, the city only asked for a “mitigated negative declaration (MND),” a much less stringent report. Hanna says this runs counter to standard practice for construction of similar projects.
And he thinks someone may have lifted data from EIRs for similar projects to satisfy the lower standard Visalia City Hall appears willing to accept.
“I was noticing in some of my research almost every one of these major, high-volume gas stations has an EIR prepared for it, not a mitigated negative declaration,” Hanna said. “So, I’m curious if that’s one of the ones I saw in Bakersfield that actually had a full EIR, and they used that (data). From my research, it’s common practice to do an EIR for a gas station of this size because of its implications.”
He also said the city’s records show no one from City Hall contacted the San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District about the project and its potential impacts.
“I think there should have been a line of communication to the air control district with regards to that,” Hanna said. “Nowhere did I see that there was an actual, ‘I called them. Here’s a letter from them. Here’s their opinion on this matter. Here’s some questions we had about that.’ None of that was (there). It was, ‘I cherry-picked some of the manuals off their website, and I found what I liked and I did my analysis.’”
Additionally, creating an MND in an area known to host protected species must include informing the state’s Fish and Wildlife Department. Hanna said City Hall skipped this step.
Developer Defends Project Plan
Jim Shehadey, manager of Visalia Parkway Partners, LLC, said the company’s plans will ultimately benefit the area. Filling in the open space, he said, will reduce vagrancy, dust and prevent cars from speeding in the area.
Shehadey also praised the residents of Westlake Village and said he was proud of the changes his company has made to mitigate somewhat the impact of the project.
“We’ve relocated the gas pumps to 160 feet from the nearest wall. Some of the pumps are over 300 feet from the nearest wall,” he said. “We basically created an entire parcel with landscape trees separating the gas pumps from the community. We’re happy to do that.”
However, the 300-foot offset recommended by the San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District as a buffer between a source of pollutants and so-called “sensitive receptors” – people who are less able to withstand breathing contaminated air – is intended to keep homebuilders from constructing new residences too close to sources of pollution.
“Their guidance is actually pretty hazy when it comes to building a high-volume fuel-dispensing station next to already existing sensitive receptors,” said attorney Hanna. “And I suspect that’s because they (the District) would say, ‘Well, why would you do that? We’ve already got the guidance you shouldn’t bring a neighborhood over to there. Why would you build another one next to it?’”
He also pointed out the MND does not address the thousands of cars that will refuel at the gas station every day.
“How does 1,200 cars an hour at a peak hour going within 10 feet of my client’s property line actually affect the environment?” Hanna said. “That’s something I would like to know. That’s something that was not done.”
For Mayor, Good Will Outweighs Concerns
Despite the apparent inadequacies in the city’s assessment of the environmental impacts of a project on this scale, the council eventually voted 4-1 to allow it to proceed. Mayor Brian Poochigian said he was impressed by the developer’s attempt to assuage concerns of the Westlake residents.
“I’ve never seen a developer make these kinds of concessions, like the way this developer had,” he said. “Usually, we have to tell the developer to raise the wall, and they fight tooth and nail because it doubles the price of their construction. These guys didn’t do it. They were trying to be good neighbors.”
But in 2019 a similar set of concessions allowed construction of an AM/PM gas station at Caldwell Avenue and West Street. In that case, the hours of operation and deliveries were cut, the number of gas pumps was reduced, and the planned drive-through restaurant and car wash were eliminated from the project. The site of that market is surrounded on three sides by established neighborhoods.
Poochigian feels the developer in Westlake’s case has done enough to make the project safe for Visalians. Besides, they have other, more pressing worries, he believes.
“I’m going to be fully supportive of this tonight,” he said. “I think this area causes more harm because of dust for you, as people go in there and till that land and create all that dust that comes over to you. I think that’s more of a detriment to you guys than this project going in there.”
Of course the city council denied them, it was David and Goliath from the get-go and life isn’t a biblical story.
Visalia is no longer a sleepy little town. If u want to attract heavy hitters you have to have the amenities. I came from Buena Park, In 1953 it had the highest grossing Sears, Roebuck. It was a sleepy town at one time. Everyone remembers the good old days
We’re thy that good?
So sad. These people are deciding if its bad enough for the people who live there? Because they don’t live there they don’t care. They are also lowering their moral standards just because it doesn’t directly affect them. And then he says there’s more important matters to be worrying about?! ALL matters pertaining to Visalia and all of it’s communities within the city should be approached with equal care and striving to reach the same goal with every decision made.