Healdsburg approves Saggio Hills plan

<p>Jim Wood, Healdsburg's vice mayor, says the deliberations over Saggio Hills, the proposed luxury hotel and residential development, have been "all-consuming" and caused him some sleepless nights.</p><p>"The agonizing over what we're doing has had a tremendous impact on my family life," he told the audience gathered for yet another City Council hearing on the proposal for Healdsburg's last big piece of undeveloped property.</p><p>Late Wednesday, the council on a 3-0 straw vote approved the general plan amendment, area plan and tentative map that will allow the 259-acre development to proceed. It was a non-binding vote that gives the council opportunity to modify details later, or even change the final outcome.</p><p>Wood noted that it is unprecedented to have only three council members deciding such an important issue.</p><p>Council members Lisa Schaffner and Eric Ziedrich have disqualified themselves because of potential conflicts of interest. The vote of the other three council members must be unanimous for Saggio Hills to get the green light, meaning any one council member's vote carries more weight than usual.</p><p>Despite the council's vote Wednesday, still unresolved are questions over the number and location of affordable housing units that should be included with the five-star, 130-room resort and 70 multimillion-dollar homes that will define Saggio Hills.</p><p>City Council members are wrestling with whether to require as many as 150 affordable housing units be designated on a 14-acre site developers are donating for that purpose, particularly since neighbors in adjacent Parkland Farms are worried the traffic will flood their neighborhood.</p><p>The council will take up the affordable housing question again June 18.</p><p>The public also will have the opportunity to comment on separate cost and benefit analyses on Saggio Hills, which city officials see as a lifeline for the city's sinking general fund.</p><p>One report estimates Saggio Hills will generate more than $110 million over 20 years in bed taxes, city fees and other taxes. A second more conservative report pegs the number at $63 million over 16 years.</p><p>Critics of Saggio Hills have attacked it from a variety of angles, raising questions about everything from traffic, water impacts and landslide potential, to serpentine soils that contain veins with a mineral form of asbestos.</p><p>City planners and traffic consultants have concluded traffic is not a significant issue.</p><p>They say Parkland Farms Boulevard can be extended through to Saggio Hills because the street is designed to accommodate at least 5,000 daily trips, fewer than will be generated by the new development.</p><p>Among the options the council is mulling is whether to keep Parkland Farms Boulevard closed to traffic from Saggio Hills, so that vehicles would instead circulate on Passalacqua Drive and then to Healdsburg Avenue.</p><p>When it comes to water supplies, city officials say Healdsburg's allotment is more than adequate to build Saggio Hills and still leave enough water for more than 1,000 new homes, 100 hotel rooms and more than 1 million square feet of industrial space.</p><p>A geologist hired by a Saggio Hills opponent raised questions about the seismic stability of the site and potential for landslides and "liquefaction" in the event of an earthquake.</p><p>But the city's environmental and geotechnical consultants said soil conditions make those scenarios unlikely.</p><p>City planners said there will be further engineering and peer review to ensure no structures are built on unstable ground, or closer than 50 feet to a geologic fault, as specified by state law.</p><p>City officials also dismissed concerns raised over naturally occurring asbestos in the soil and the potential for it to become airborne during construction.</p><p>Wetting and covering the ground as well as monitoring the air quality during construction will make that a less than significant impact, said Planning Director Rick Tooker.</p><p>You can reach Staff Writer Clark Mason at 521-5214 or clark.mason@</p><p>pressdemocrat.com.</p>