Luxury camp resort OK’D
A proposed luxury camping resort between Groveland and Yosemite National Park was approved by the Tuolumne County Planning Commission at the end of a five-hour meeting on Wednesday, during which dozens of people expressed opposition to the project.
The commission voted 5-1-1 to approve development permits and an analysis of the project’s environmental impacts, which opponents felt didn’t adequately address issues that included wildfire risk, traffic, staff housing, water, infrastructure, and demands on local public services.
Commissioner Larry Beil voted against the project after making some suggestions about the environmental impact report, or EIR, and conditions of approving the permits that were ultimately not incorporated. Commissioner Dick Pland was absent.
Lee Zimmerman, owner of Evergreen Lodge and Rush Creek Lodge near the Highway 120 entrance to Yosemite, expressed concerns he had with the EIR and said after that he felt many of the comments from the public were largely ignored by most of the commissioners.
“It left most of those who spoke up and committed so much time to researching the 1,000 page EIR and sharing valuable input and insight clearly wondering if they really have a voice in this process and this community, and if their county officials are re
ally working to protect and balance all interests or just going through the required motions of the public comment process,” he said on Thursday.
Under Canvas, based in Bozeman, Montana, is the company behind the resort that would feature 99 tent cabins spread across 80 acres at Highway 120 and Hardin Flat Road.
The company was founded in 2009 and currently operates seven other similar resorts mostly near other national parks in the United States, with two more scheduled to open next year, and bills itself as the “nation's premier upscale camping experience provider.”
“We were very pleased with the results of last night's meeting and the recognition from the planning commissioners that the EIR was complete and sufficient and that the project received it's conditional use permit,” said Dan Mcbrearty, chief development officer for Under Canvas, in a phone interview Thursday.
Mcbrearty said the company hopes to start construction on Yosemite Under Canvas about 20 miles east of Groveland by the end of 2021 and open in spring 2022, though that's pending the approval of other required permits.
The resort would operate seasonally from spring to fall and shut down for the winter.
One person who spoke during the meeting on Wednesday said she was from a part of Washington where the company is looking to develop a resort and facing similar pushback from local residents over many of the same concerns as the opposition in Tuolumne County.
Another man who spoke said he was part of a nonprofit organization in Idaho that was formed to help fight against an Under Canvas project in their community and was ultimately successful in stopping it from being developed.
“I think, generally speaking, any development solicits opinions on
both sides, both in opposition because it's change and in support because people are interested in seeing certain products come into their community,” Mcbrearty said. “We're no different in that regard, and I think that's common amongst all development projects.”
The project is also across Highway 120 from another proposed resort
known as the Terra Vi Lodge, which is planned to feature 140 guest rooms, 25 detached cabins with 100 guest rooms, a public market, two-story event center, and helicopter landing pad.
Mcbrearty said that Under Canvas was looking at its site a year before being made aware of the Terra Vi Lodge, which is being proposed by the Hansji Corp., an Anaheim-based developer that has built and restored multimilliondollar high-rise hotels in downtown Phoenix and San Diego.
Both properties are owned by the family of the late Tim Manly, who purchased the land in the late 1980s and got the zoning changed from timberland to commercial in the 1990s with the idea of developing it someday into something similar to what's now being proposed.
More than 75 people participated in the meeting held via Zoom on Wednesday due to the COVID-19 pandemic, with 31 speaking during the public comment period that lasted for about three hours.
The only person who voiced support for the project was Ron Kopf, who said he was speaking as the executive director of the Tuolumne County Business Council and as government affairs director of the Tuolumne County Association of Realtors.
Kopf said they felt the project would be a potential boon for the local economy and provided much-needed tax revenue for county services by capitalizing on some of the roughly 1 million visitors who enter Yosemite each year via the Highway 120 corridor.
“This project addresses vacation stay needs for a portion of the existing traffic that is already on the Highway 120 corridor to Yosemite,” he said, noting that a market study conducted prior to the construction of Rush Creek Lodge identified the need for “hundreds” of additional rooms along the route.
However, many who spoke on Wednesday and live or own property near where the camping resort is planned felt that the potential dangers and
long-term negative impacts on the community outweighed the benefits of additional tax revenue for the county's coffers.
One of the common arguments was that the county hasn't considered all of the cumulative impacts posed by the addition of hundreds of guests along the corridor through projects being proposed or are currently underway, including the camping resort, Terra Vi Lodge, and the expansion of the City of Berkeley's Tuolumne Camp that's also on Hardin Flat Road.
“To not consider the cumulative impact on evacuation and traffic is neglectful and dangerous,” said Mary Beth Campbell, of Groveland.
Campbell also talked about a concern that others addressed with regard to potential impacts on water availability and quality for surrounding residents, because the camping resort and Terra Vi Lodge would be served by wells due to the lack of access to public water and sewer infrastructure.
A man who identified himself as Leonard Murphy and a local resident said he believes the company is taking advantage of the county's lax building codes by using tents that can be taken down at the end of each season.
“They're attempting to circumvent the regulations that a conventional hotel has to abide by and push their project through the approval process by pointing to their paid consultants who just nod their heads and provide rubber stamps,” he said. “To think this project won't have an impact on the environment, fire risks, already scarce housing, traffic, and community safety is illogical.”
Commissioner Charlotte Frazier at one point in the meeting acknowledged that she had concerns about the environmental analysis being incomplete and needing work in certain areas, before ultimately voting to certify it.
The commission attempted to address some concerns about fire risk by adding a requirement that wood heating stoves in each tent could not be used when the U.S. Forest Service suspends campfires in developed campgrounds and that propane
stoves could be used as an alternative.
Another addition was requiring fire agencies that will have to approve fire safety plans for the resort to determine an appropriate sized water tank that would have to be on the property.
Beil pushed for requiring the developers to install monitoring wells that would help ensure wells of neighboring properties weren't being contaminated, but the rest of the commission didn't feel it was necessary.
There was also a suggestion raised by Beil to require the developer to work with the Forest Service establishing a fuel break on adjacent forest land, but that also wasn't supported by the other commissioners.
Questions were also raised by Beil about the amount of a required “fair-share fee” that the developer would have to pay to help fund emergency services being provided by the county, such as ambulance, fire, and law enforcement.
County Administrator Tracie Riggs said they don't currently know how much the fee will be when the developer is required to pay because they were still working with agencies to determine the cost of providing those services.
Riggs noted the fee would have to be paid until after construction and before the county issues an occupancy permit that would allow the resort to open.
The commission's decision can be appealed to the county Board of Supervisors within 10 days, which also requires whoever files it to pay a fee of more than $1,000. Opponents can also file a lawsuit if the board upholds the approval.
Dan Courtney, who splits his time between San Diego and property he inherited from his mother that's close to both the proposed camping resort and Terra Vi Lodge, said on Thursday that he was still “in shock” by the commission's decision to approve the project.
Courtney said he felt the county was “rushing” the project through the process as opposed to taking the time to address their concerns so that any appeal would go to the board before three newly elected county supervisors take their seats next year.
“It seems like some outgoing board members are extremely prodevelopment,” he said. “My feeling is that there are some interests which care only about increased tax revenues and have no consideration at all for the community or the environment, which is the basis of what makes Tuolumne County a beautiful place.”