Yucaipa authorities are refusing to discuss what is rumored to be Premium Land Development’s decision to walk away from the Serrano Estates project more than 18 months after it was given narrow approval by the city council amid multiple charges of improprieties involving the developer and city officials.
The project was given a 3-to-2 approval by the city council on April 17, 2023 after the planning commission the previous year had rejected the project, which was not provided with a comprehensive environmental impact report despite involving an intensity of land use greater than what was envisioned for the property in the city’s general plan.
A lack of transparency with regard to the current situation has triggered widespread speculation about what is afoot. One unconfirmed report is that the city, after kowtowing to the project proponent, Craig Heaps, on multiple occasions in 2022 and 2023 by suspending several regulations and standards that would have otherwise applied to the property, is now going to impose on him a substantial monetary penalty for nonperformance after he provided assurances the development program for 51 units on 52 acres would have progressed toward substantial or full completion by now.
Other reports had it that Heaps never intended to perform, but was merely seeking an entitlement to develop the property, and that city officials were aware of his agenda all along, having abetted him in it.
Despite repeated efforts by the Sentinel to learn from City Manager Chris Mann, Yucaipa Director of Development Services Fermin Preciado and Yucaipa City Planner Ben Matlock what the actual status of the project is, City Hall is electing, at present, to keep the public in the dark.
The project, located in the city district referred to as the north bench, was set to be constructed on 52 acres along the east side of Yucaipa Ridge Road, north of Ivy Avenue, directly adjacent to Quartz Street and Crystal Street. The project site consists of undeveloped property and was under the city’s general plan slated for single family homes on lot sizes of at least one acre in conjunction with the city’s Rural Living or RL-1 zoning. The property falls within Yucaipa’s Custom Home (CH) Overlay District, in which cookie-cutter subdivisions typical of urban areas are discouraged. The area is likewise surrounded by low density zones.
There was concern on the part of many people that what Heaps and his company, Premium Land Development, were attempting to do was to get the city to okay the project, which was to confine 51 homes to 51 lots compressed on 27 acres, such that the lots to be developed would be more like 23,061.17 square feet or 0.529 of an acre, using questionable standards that were far more favorable to Heaps than the community. An acre consists of 43,560 square feet.
Heaps and Premium Land Development had also included in the project a 52nd lot consisting of 12 acres, on which it was not really clear whether, perhaps, another home would be built, and 13 acres of “open space.”
Instead of requiring that Premium Land Develpment perform an environmental impact report in order to obtain certification for the project, city officials agreed to sign off on the proposal using a far less exacting process known as mitigated negative declaration.
Under the California Environmental Quality Act, the impacts of a development project must be evaluated as part of the approval process for that undertaking before the proponent can be clearance to proceed. Different types of certification can be made, some of which are more intensive than others. Those include, at the most intensive end of the scale, an environmental impact report, followed by an environmental impact study, then an environmental impact assessment, after which is a mitigated negative declaration and at the low end, a negative declaration.
Those differing types of certifications are normally performed by an independent entity and paid for by the proponent, with the expense greatest at the top end of the scale and lowest at the bottom.
An environmental impact report is an involved study of the project site, the project proposal, the potential and actual impacts the project will have on the site and surrounding area in terms of all conceivable issues, including land use, water use, air quality, potential contamination, noise, traffic, and biological and cultural resources. It specifies in detail what measures can, will and must be carried out to offset those impacts. A mitigated negative declaration is a far less exacting size-up of the impacts of a project, by which the panel entrusted with the city’s ultimate land use authority, in this case the city council, issues a declaration that all adverse environmental impacts from the project will be mitigated, or offset, by the conditions of approval of the project imposed upon the developer.
The approach Heaps was taking and which the city was allowing him to proceed with left open the possibility that in the future, when memories have faded and there have been personnel changes on the city council, Premium Land and Heaps or their corporate successor will come in with another proposal to develop the 12-acre Lot 52 or perhaps the combined 25 acres consisting of Lot 52 and the area’s open space.
The overwhelming majority of the public speakers at the April 17 special meeting went on record against the project, including former Planning Commission Chairwoman Denise Work and former Planning Commissioner Dennis Miller. Only two public speakers expressed support of the proposal. There was substantial sentiment among the members of the public present that Premium Land Development and Heaps were not living up to either the spirit or the letter of the one-acre lot minimum inherent in RL-1 zoning with the way the lots were arranged on the Serrano Estates tract map. The meeting had the distinction of being the first major test of what developmental standards the City of Yucaipa will live up to under Chris Mann’s guidance as city manager. Mann had been installed as city manager a little more than three months previously, when the 3-to-2 council majority of Justin Beaver, Bobby Duncan and Matt Garner had forced Mann’s predecessor as city manager, Ray Casey, to resign. Contained in the citizen opposition at the April 17, 2023 meeting was the belief by some that members of the city council were on the take, receiving bribes from the development community in exchange for accommodating construction project proposals. This dovetailed with the outrage over the Casey firing, as Mann, through his company, Mann Communications, served as as representative for multiple companies in the construction industry. Mann at one time was the chief political strategist at O’Reilly Public Relations working upon obtaining land-use entitlements.
Seven days after the meeting at which the Serrano Estates project was being considered, on April 24, recall petitions signed by 193 city residents would be turned over to the city clerk, qualifying an effort to removed Beaver, Duncan and Garner from office.
Despite what appeared to be the overwhelming citizen resistance to the project, the 3-to-2 vote in favor of the project took place. Beaver, perhaps mindful that he was already on thin ice because of the Casey sacking, joined with Councilman Jon Thorp in opposing the project. Duncan and Garner joined with Venable in giving the project a thumbs up.
Some suggested that Beaver was in support of the project as well, but that he voted against it in the knowledge that it had three votes without his support.
After the passage of a year-and-a-half, the project has not come to fruition and work is emanating, from a source apparently close to City Hall but which has not been identified, that Heaps and Premium Land Development are not going to proceed with the project.
The Sentinel sought to confirm that Heaps and Premium Land Development were pulling the plug on the project, but no one in a position to know – Heaps, Mann, Preciado or Matlock – are talking.
Of note is that Heaps is now identified as being the principal in an outfit calling itself West Coast Entitlement, LLC.
Accordingly, the Sentinel sought from Mann whether Premium Land Development’s entitlement to build remains intact, such that it is just going to hand that entitlement off to another entity and, if so, to whom. The Sentinel further sought from Mann if he knew how much Heaps and Premium Land Development were selling that entitlement for.
Mann did not respond to the Sentinel’s inquiry.
The Sentinel also sought to find out if Heaps had perhaps temporized and thereby allowed a deadline by which he was supposed to achieve some milestone elapse and, if so, what it was he was supposed to do that he didn’t do. The Sentinel failed in finding out what that failure consisted of if in fact there was such a failure.
The Sentinel also looked into the report that the city had assessed a monetary penalty against Heaps and/or Premium Land Development and how much that penalty was. Likewise the Sentinel was able to make no definitive determination.
The Sentinel was able to research, however, some of the requirements that Premium Land Development was supposed to live up to, which included paying to the city $1,207,229.73 in development impact fees, consisting of drainage facilities fees of $401,745.42; traffic facilities fees of $532,144.20; public facilities fees of $73,675.62; fire facilities fees of $46,726.71 and park facilities fees of $152,937.78.
In addition, Heaps and Premium Land Development were responsible for fees to be collected by other agencies, such as the Yucaipa Valley Water District and Yucaipa Calimesa School District beyond the $1,207,229.73 to be paid to the city, which the Sentinel was unable to quantify. Moreover, the company was required to make make good on fees imposed by the California Department of Fish & Game.