12/13/2025
ACTION ‼️ Tuesday December 16, the Board of Supervisors will make a decision on appeals filed by USA Properties and YIMBY regarding the Planning Commission’s denial of the Hope Way Apartments submitted by a for profit low income housing company. USA Properties is seeking funding from the county for construction as well as presumed ongoing financial contracts to manage a 12 building 3 story project which stands to more than double the population of Penryn. The first of many RM30 rezones to come placing low income projects of 20-30units per acre in areas designated for 1-10 units per acre max.
The following comments were submitted.
———
Thank you for the opportunity to comment on Appeals of the Planning Commission’s October 16, 2025, Decision (PLN24-00076).
Defend Granite Bay is a California registered 501C3 whose mission is to educate residents on the planning process and decisions which impact their communities. Your ruling on the proposed Hope Way Apartments will have sweeping impacts throughout every rural community as it sets the precedent for high density projects which decimate the definition of rural, prematurely overwhelm infrastructure, use tax dollars to pay for developers affordable obligations and allows CDRA to continue pandering to the building industry at the expense of existing residents through continued use of RM30.
Auditor-Controller, Mr. Sisk, was kind enough to go through what must have been a challenging request to identify the number of affordable units constructed by developers from 2005 to present, excluding ADU’s which are at no cost to the builder. That number of affordable and/or workforce units constructed or preserved over 20 years is abysmally 450.
In 2019, the very representatives from HCD, Mr. McDougall and Mr. Saldana, who are now trying to strong arm the county into devastating actions for Penryn participated in a meeting with non-profits including Defend Granite Bay and Alliance for Environmental Leadership. We discussed Placer’s failure to hold new development accountable for its affordable obligation and requested that HCD provide comments that the Sunset Industrial Area and Placer Ranch Specific Plans should be used to make up for the known shortfall of affordable housing to prevent exactly what is happening today. (see PowerPoint)
Additionally, Director Velasquez, Mr. McDougall, and Mr. Saldana were informed prior to accepting the RM30 program that the site-specific impacts, including lack of fire protection and traffic, were not addressed in the programmatic EIR and that site 26 was in fact market rate which is something we are hopeful that YIMBY takes note of.
HCD accepted the RM30 program with a known deficit of 246 units on site 26 and 240 units on sites 17 and 18 with known health and safety issues. Threats of sanctions by the very agency that created this debacle is thick with irony.
Pocket Protectors v City of Sacramento established that “opinions of area residents, if based on direct observation, may be relevant and may constitute substantial evidence in support of a fair argument.” Today you must consider a traffic “model” which assumes that in the event of a fire that drivers on the road will immediately and in unison redirect in a single lane traffic circle or find their way to alternate routes depicted by pink arrows in the traffic study. And testimony and alternate traffic studies which rely on the fair argument raised by residents with perceivably 1000’s of hours of cumulative driving in their local traffic area.
It is fairly argued that under duress, drivers will think “me”, “myself” and “I” causing mass confusion and congestion on a one way round-about and that it is far more likely for a fire to ignite on a third floor apartment during a weekend rush hour standstill on highway 80 with skiers headed out for good snow in Tahoe.
As YIMBY has stated under, “California Government Code § 65589.5, the Housing Accountability Act, prohibits localities from denying housing development projects that are compliant with the locality’s zoning ordinance or general plan at the time the application was deemed complete, unless the 1 locality can make findings that the proposed housing development would be a threat to public health and safety.”
The residents of Penryn have identified a real threat to public health and safety. Your Planning Commissioners supported their findings. This Board must consider the lack of mitigated fire protection with diligence and responsibility for health, safety, and wellbeing of existing and future residents of Penryn.
We respectfully request that you deny the appeal and work with HCD on a realistic path forward to hold new development responsible for its share of affordable units and with USA Properties to identify a more suitable location with immediately available fire protection capacity.
The Defend Granite Bay Board and members.
