Well Bart, I'm sure that it will make money for the developers who usually build, sell and run, leaving any infrastructure upgrades, traffic congestion, etc. for the taxpayers to deal with later.

I hope Auburn is not trying to replicate what has happened in Roseville, Rocklin and Lincoln.

The peoples republic of davis has a public voting requirement for new development. It works well. It has stopped most residential and commercial development and is slowly but surly bankrupting the city.

All anyone has to do is take a drive by Herdal and see the small residential street that is suppose to filter all this traffic into the 'planned' housing area. The city would let someone build mud huts if it put more money in their coffers not to mention getting into bed with any developer that comes along with a great idea to build, build, build.

Come on, people are going to move here. Developers should be required to pay for infrastructure upgrades. They should also be required to put in parks and schools and DECENT roads and low income and senior housing.

Sara11: Even if this current plan gets approved, that is when the lawsuits will come piling on...this Des Jardins guy hasn't seen nothin' yet.

Wow, I grew up in Auburn and cannot believe what I am seeing with this new development. It's insane. Will we do anything for a price? What about the moratorium on cutting down large oak trees? They'd have to do some serious clear-cutting to get this project done. Is this really what we want to do and want to be? How did this get this far?

Steelybob I really hope you are right. Des Jardins just got himself out of some kind of bankruptcy. Like I said just throw up some mud huts and he can run away with the money, the city gets their share of the pie, and wala everyone is happy.

loomisresident,

It would be difficult for Auburn to duplicate those towns. The property in question is the only remaining undeveloped land within the city limits.

I'm amazed. Where have all of you been? There have been public hearings and many articles and letters in the Journal. Under current conditions this plan will be just that a plan. The City has pushed the development for at least 18 years, the developers have come and gone. I still can't believe that the historical and railroad aficionado's relented and have gotten out of the way to bridge Bloomer Cut.

The California Environmental Quality Act requires that all aspects of a project be included in one environmental review so the

agency can consider the overall cumulative environmental impacts of the whole of the project.

Segmenting larger projects into smaller pieces is prohibited and fails to meet CEQA’s core

purposes of impact evaluation and mitigation as well as full disclosure to foster informed public

decision-making. The courts have repeatedly rejected the approach of separating project

activities for independent CEQA review and required them to be reviewed together where, for

example, the second activity is a reasonably foreseeable consequence of the first activity.

Trying to divid the Baltimore Ravine project into to separte development is a clear attempt to mimize the true impacts of this project. "Look we are only adding 200+ houses now and taking out xxx acres of open space, consuming xx acre feet of water." The clear intent is build both phases of this project, which cumulatively has unavoidable significant impacts on the infrustructure, water supply, and natural environment of Auburn. This will go to court and segmenting under CEQA regulations will be at the for front of the argument. The Planning Department and City should insist that the full scope of the project is analyized in the EIR.