Index to the web page below:
March 9, 1994 SEPCO action
August 29, 2001 FPL hearing
November 20, 2001 FPL Hearing:

Supervisor Nottoli on diminution in value
Supervisor Roger Dickinson re property value
Supervisor Nottoli re private utility vs.public utility:
Supervisor Nottoli re consistentcy with zoning agreement
Supervisor Dickinson re the 1994 Board hearing
Supervisor Dickinson re Community Benefits negotiation
Supervisor Nottoli on how to address diminution in value
Supervisor Illa Collin re Environmental Justice

The following transcription was prepared by Jay O'Brien from the Sacramento County Board of Supervisors meeting on March 9, 1994, starting at 6PM. The Board unanimously adopted Supervisor Dickinson's resolution at 9:01 PM. A video tape is available to support this transcription.

County Planner Tricia Stevens, at 6:15 PM: "The first condition of approval, and I think this is very important to understand, that the condition limits the use to this facility to a power plant and ethanol facility. If for whatever reasons, this project is not built, there is not another use that would be authorized on this property."

First District Sacramento County Supervisor Dickinson, at 8:38 PM: "What I do think it makes sense to do, as I said, is try to formulate a project that will be as good a project as it can possibly be and in that connection I have attempted to work with members of the community, staff that have worked on this, and the applicant, to formulate a proposal that advances the proposition here of making this the best project it can be. I want to take just a moment, even though Trish talked a little bit at the outset about some of these conditions, to enumerate them again because I think they're very, very, significant and important. First of all, this project will not occur, or the rezone I suppose I should say, will not be effective for any use other than this project. And so, the fear that this rezone might occur and some other use be made of this property will not occur if we approve the resolution that I have offered."

FPL 8/29/01:

The following transcription was prepared by Jay O'Brien from the Sacramento County Board of Supervisors meeting on August 29, 2001, starting at 6PM. After some deliberation, at 10:11 PM the Board scheduled another hearing at 2:15 PM on October 3, 2001. A video tape is available to support this transcription.

First District Sacramento County Supervisor Dickinson, at 10:06 PM after testimony from FPL counsel Jocelyn Thompson: "Following on Jocelyn's comments, I certainly agree, I think we need to sit down with the Energy Commission staff and clarify exactly what it is we want. I think we need, from my standpoint I think we need to, if Community plan and General plan policy consistency, whatever that means, is an issue here, we're going to need something that simply maybe takes what you have given us as an appendix and tries to refine it into the salient points and I think at least for some of us it would actually be of assistance to see what difference it makes in what we do; in terms of ultimately what the CEC is considering in its process by that I mean if you rescind the zoning agreement what does that lead to from the standpoint of process, if you don't rescind it what does that lead to, if you look at IR zoning what does that imply from a process standpoint, if you look at M2 zoning what does that; because I'm not yet convinced that in the end it comes out any different no matter what you say, it still ends up in the same place. But I'd like to see that. I don't know if there are other things that other people want, but those are the things that occur to me."

Comments from Jay O'Brien (8/29/01):

It is interesting that Supervisor Dickinson is concerned about the Community Plan, the General Plan, IR zoning and M2 zoning as issues to be included in taking action on this project. It is interesting that Supervisor Dickinson is not concerned about the commitment he made to his constituents on March 9, 1994, to wit "...this project will not occur... or the rezone I suppose I should say, will not be effective for any use other than this project. And so, the fear that this rezone might occur and some other use be made of this property will not occur if we approve the resolution that I have offered." (The resolution he offered was approved)

The fear was justified.

Supervisor Nottoli: Jay just in your last paragraph that you read from, you attribute a estimate of reduction in property values to forty percent and that was made by a Florida Power and Light representative?

O’Brien: Yes, at a meeting in Rio Linda

Supervisor Nottoli: And that was in response to a question just give me the context, take a brief moment.

O’Brien: It was how much will my property values decrease, and that was the answer.

Supervisor Nottoli: Forty percent?

O’Brien: And then it went on to say in the long term the property values will come back up, perhaps to what they were at the beginning. The impression that sticks with me is about twenty years, is what they were talking about.

Supervisor Nottoli: Has there been any subsequent explanation behind that, there's been some meetings since then, have there been any additional responses to follow up on that or any clarification provided since that July meeting?

O’Brien: No. However, we're doing some research with property devaluation experts. There have been studies done at airports when airports have expanded for the same kind of reason. We're trying to get some of that information to back up what looks like a reasonable estimate, forty percent.

Supervisor Nottoli: Ok, thanks Jay.

Supervisor Dickinson: The other question I had was one that Mr. Nottoli referred to and that's the concern raised about the effect on property values. Is that something that from the planning staff's point of view could be incorporated in the CEC review or handled in some fashion, it's not technically an environmental issue, but obviously it's an issue of great concern to those in proximity to the site.

Planning Director Tom Hutchings responds: (I'm) trying to think through the policy context view of the General Plan or the Community Plan and I can't think of a specific policy context for us to raise that at this point in terms of your land use policy. Certainly, and the irony is most of your land use policies are geared toward wanting to maintain viable communities and that implies sustaining property values. So we probably need to look at that. I don't have an answer for you this evening and maybe we can confer with counsel about whether or not that's an issue related to the general planning consistency or maybe it's simply another comment that the Board may want to make to the CEC.

Deputy County Counsel John Whisenhunt responds at 6:01 PM: The term “public utility” is not restricted to an entity like SMUD. It includes those, but it also includes those utility type uses that are regulated by the PUC, such as PG&E, Southern Cal Edison, various private water companies, etc. When that zoning code provision was adopted, there was no such thing as a merchant power plant. All the power plants were owned and operated by public utilities. It was deregulation that created the whole concept of these private plants. The zoning code was never changed to create a distinction between merchant plants and plants that are operated by entities like SMUD. What the planning department has done has said that that was the intent of the zoning code then, these are the most comparable uses, that's the most comparable use in the zoning code now even though there's a distinction that's been created, functionally a power plant whether its operated by SMUD or a private company, it does the same thing, it has the same impacts, from a land use prospective the ownership, private vs. public, doesn't have much of a distinction.

Deputy County Counsel John Whisenhunt responds at 6:04 PM:
Because, as has been alluded to several times tonight and at earlier hearings, when the property was zoned IR, it allowed a standalone power plant as a conditionally permitted use. The only reason that SEPCO came before the Board and asked for the M2 zoning was to add the ethanol component to it. And so, the M2 zoning was approved along with the zoning agreement that in effect limited the uses of that property as a matter of right as opposed to a conditionally approved use to that particular project. And the reason that the Board did that, was if you just rezoned it M2 and didn't restrict the uses, you would have allowed a whole number of uses that are allowed as a matter of right in the M2 zone so our reading of the zoning agreement is simply to limit the uses allowed as a matter of right, not to say that a use that was both conditionally permitted in the IR zone and the M2 zone is no longer a conditionally permitted use. In effect, if you were to do that, then you would be saying that this piece of property is the only piece of property in the entire County where you can't put a standalone power plant because of the zoning agreement. If you go through the zoning code, standalone power plants are allowed as a conditionally permitted use in every other zone.

Supervisor Illa Collin: Any other similarly zoned?

Wisenhunt: No. If you go through the zoning code, it's allowed in other industrial zones, it's allowed in other commercial zones, they're allowed in agricultural zones, as conditionally permitted uses. The whole idea is that they're a unique type of use that really needs a case by case determination through the use permit process.

Supervisor Nottoli: Excludes residential zones?

Wisenhunt: I think it includes residential zones. I know it includes all the other industrial, commercial and agricultural zones.

Supervisor Nottoli: Your point one more time then on that is that if we were to take the literal interpretation of the zoning agreement, that it would limit this piece of property, whether it's industrial reserve or M2, would be the only piece where you couldn't, through the conditional use (process), have a power plant.

Wisenhunt: Right.

I want to address just for a moment remarks that I made in 1994 that were similar to those made by Tricia Stevens when the SEPCO project was before us. I think it's important to understand those remarks in context. At that time there were a number of people, some of whom are in this room, who opposed the SEPCO project, who were concerned among other things that the SEPCO project was simply a cogeneration proposal in sheep's clothing to get a power plant, as the wolf, in the door. And what we were able to do, to ensure that that did not occur, was work with the CEC staff to incorporate as conditions of approval on the license to SEPCO, the ethanol plant portion of that proposal, thereby ensuring that if that proposal went forward, it would in fact be only a cogeneration plant. That permit, that license, has expired. That plant was never built. And so we return to the fundamental question, which we are presented with, which there have been and will continue to be, a full public opportunity to comment on for a standalone power plant. It could have been the proposal in the early 1990’s with the IR zoning. The fact that we acted to ensure at that time that the proposal was of a certain character, guaranteed by what the CEC did, doesn't change the fact of that reality and it doesn't change the fact that in either the M2 or the IR zone today, as has been said over and over, it's a conditionally permitted use. I think that from my standpoint that finding of consistency is the legally compelled conclusion and not inconsistent, by the way, with the action that this board took in 1994 or the CEC took with respect to the SEPCO project.

I think finally, that with respect to the recommendation regarding community benefits, that we designate that as something that this member and county staff can continue to work with community members regarding. We did that in the SEPCO instance, and I think that's a process that can work here, as well. Up to this point in my estimation it's made sense for the applicant to talk to members of the community about what they might find of benefit to develop ideas along those lines but I don't think that it's necessary to try to appoint some formal committee in that regard. We can continue to work, I think, with a number of people who've expressed interest in that subject.

Planning Director Tom Hutchings responds at 6:47 PM:
My initial thought was that perhaps there is another paragraph that comes maybe near the end that basically alerts the CEC to the fact that we've had these hearings, that we've had concerns raised about property values and impacts and think that's an important issue to the community that to the extent the CEC’s process allows that to be evaluated, we would ask them to look at that as well.

I would like to make a couple of comments, too, because I do believe that one of the recurring themes that I heard all the time from many many people in Rio Linda, and it's echoed in other communities where power plants are being looked at in California. It's the whole issue of environmental justice. And I think that that's what we are hearing. We are hearing that because of demographics and economic demographics of communities; certain communities get cited a lot more than others for the construction of power generating plants, probably out of all proportion to their use of the power in those communities. I do not know if the Energy Commission looks at that issue but I would assume that the issue of environmental justice absolutely has to be looked at in the siting of these plants that are being proposed in California.
[click here for more information about Environmental Justice]