Community members are uniting to oppose ballot measure
By Anthony Ha Staff Writer
Hollister – Pulte Homes’ plans to build a 4,400-home retirement community near the city’s municipal airport recently came under additional fire, as some community members joined together to oppose the Pulte-sponsored Measure S.
If passed, the measure would amend the city’s general plan to redesignate 1,300 acres of agricultural land as a “mixed use residential community.” Once the city’s moratorium on development is lifted, this land would be exempt from the 244-unit annual limit on residential allocations imposed by Measure U; instead, Pulte subsidiary Del Webb could be issued up to 650 building permits a year.
Gordon Machado of Rustic Turtle Embroidery Works is heading the anti-Measure S campaign, and said his opposition stems from the fact that “it’s just poor planning.”
Machado pointed to the project’s size and distance from the city as some of his major concerns; he also said it was unfair for one developer to receive 600 building permits while everyone else has to make do with 244.
“It’s a big disadvantage to Hollister’s development community,” he said.
Annette Giacomazzi, a local resident hired to by Pulte Homes to lobby for the project, disputed Machado’s assertion that the retirement community will be too large and too far away.
“The city planning department and all relevant agencies will be involved in determining how many houses there are,” she said, adding, “Measure S is not about project approval, it’s about changing the land’s designation. … We’re not trying to bypass any of the necessary steps.”
City Councilman Doug Emerson, also part of the anti-Measure S group, said he recently finished drafting a resolution in opposition to Measure S that the council will vote on next Monday. Although Emerson echoed many of Machado’s criticisms, he said he objected primarily to the process, not the project.
“We’re going to be changing the general plan without using any of the planning process,” he said. “The real danger is that if this passes, and if Del Webb decides to pull out, the citizens are still stuck with the revisions to the general plan.”
Earlier this month, the city issued a report that cast the project in a highly critical light. This report was commissioned by the City Council and conducted by three independent consulting firms; it stated that the proposed project would burden city roads, erode prime agricultural land through “leapfrog” development and cost the city up to $2.7 million annually.
Giacomazzi described the report as “fatally flawed” and said Pulte’s lawyers had given a list of objections to the city; according to Emerson, former city attorney Elaine Cass worked with the consulting firms to make “slight changes” incorporating Pulte’s criticisms.
