Mariposa County won’t be rolling over.
That is the clear message in a letter the Mariposa County Planning Department sent last week to the developer of a controversial plan to build 110 homes next to the Yosemite West community, on the doorstep of Yosemite National Park.
In a 13-page letter sent March 27 to Martin Smith of Camp Yosemite LLC, Mariposa County Senior Planner Ben Goger said the developers have failed to provide the most basic information that would allow the county to even begin to consider such a plan.
Camp Yosemite, which submitted its proposal in December, is claiming a provision in state law — known as “builder’s remedy” — should allow it to circumvent local ordinances so long as 20 percent of the project is deemed affordable.
In California, a developer can use builder’s remedy to bypass local rules if the municipality doesn’t have what is known as a housing element, a roadmap to provide more affordable housing.
Mariposa County got its housing element approved by the state last week, on March 24, three months after the Camp Yosemite application was submitted.
Goger is careful to write that the county isn’t rejecting the Camp Yosemite proposal, which was resubmitted earlier this month, it just cannot currently approve it.
“Mariposa County finds that the project would have specific, adverse impacts on public health and safety, and no feasible method has been proposed to satisfactorily mitigate or avoid impacts,” Goger writes.
The county said it requires information and answers under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA). Builder’s remedy is not exempt from the requirements of CEQA.
The project site is surrounded on three sides by publicly protected lands.
Among the county’s objections is the lack of a proposed traffic and circulation plan that would address the inadequacy of the existing roadways and what might happen if an evacuation was necessary in case of fire.
The Yosemite West neighborhood was nearly incinerated in 2018 by the Ferguson Fire.
The 110 homes of Camp Yosemite would be close together on a 31-acre site that would be built on a slope in a “high fire severity zone.”
The project is adjacent to the Yosemite West community, but is not considered part of its maintenance district so it is not entitled to its water and sewer services.
The current system wouldn’t have the capacity to support the Camp Yosemite project.
All these issues are unaddressed in the proposal, which is extremely bare bones and lacking in all the details such a project would usually include.
In Goger’s March 27 letter, he asked Martin Smith of Camp Yosemite to respond by May 26. What happens after that deadline is not entirely clear.
Martin Smith and his business partners have used “builder’s remedy” with other projects around California that are currently involved in protracted litigation.
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