STAFF REPORT - CITY COUNCIL/SUCCESSOR AGENCY/PUBLIC FINANCE AUTHORITY

This was a future agenda item by the Council for staff to review a possible opportunity to develop the City’s property at the Southwest corner of Alpine/SR33 and Jayne Ave/SR33. Staff has not formal recommendation but has provided possible options for the council to consider and/or pursue. 

The City of Coalinga currently owns 477 acres at the Corner of Jayne /SR33 and Alpine/SR33 and originally purchased by the sewer fund it in or around 2002/2003 in order facilitate the relocation of the City’s wastewater treatment plant. The land lies adjacent to Jacalitos Creek and is in the floodplain limiting development on the full 477 acres. In 2005, There were plans drawn, an environmental impact report prepared and certified, and subsequent annexation completed as part of the development process. Since the annexation occurred, development has slowed and the increase in sewer influent demand has not occurred eliminating the need to the relocate the plant and unnecessarily increase rates on existing rate payers to pay for a new plant.

The property is currently laying vacant and occasionally farmed through a lease with Lovelace Farms who have been managing the land for the City. The City, at this current time has no plans for the future use of the property, however, the Council has expressed interest in developing the property to accommodate future cannabis operations.  Staff was tasked with looking into the possibility of developing the land for something other than Public Facilities which was the original intention of the annexation.  

The property in question is a non-contiguous piece of land 6 miles from the City. It currently has a land use designation and zoning classification of (PF) Public Facilities and open/space conservation (land adjacent and within the creek) which, according to the land use element, typically provides areas for needed public and institutional facilities, including, but not limited to City, County and other government agency properties including post offices, the Civic Center, public schools, public playgrounds and fire stations. Public utility rights-of-way are also included. The previous EIR from the relocation plan identified the property as subject to the Williamson Act requiring a cancellation of the contract prior to development activities for any future use that is not agriculture. At this time, it is unknown if the Williamson act recognizes cannabis as consistent with Williamson act land. Staff has reached out the to the state to confirm but has not heard back from them as of the drafting of this report. The property was initially annexed to accommodate the City’s future wastewater treatment facility which allowed for the non-contiguous (“island”) annexation to occur. However, as years have passed the need to relocate the plant has diminished and the Council has expressed interest in developing the property as it has seen a lot of interest from the cannabis industry since land in the existing corporate limits are very limited.

Staff spoke with LAFCo and discussed the possible opportunity for commercial development on this property and whether there would be any immediate issues related to commercially developing this property and according to the original annexation documents, there was nothing that appeared in the documents that would preclude the city from doing so. However, there was one item identified in the annexation documents related to the City’s tax sharing agreement with the Fire protection district. Once the property changes from City owned to privately owned it would become taxable and the fire district would be subject to receiving a portion of said property tax revenue. This is addressed in the City’s agreement with Fire District.  

Although there may not be any issues with related to the previous annexation and commercially developing the land, there are several unknowns that would need to be further investigated or discovered once a development proposal is submitted by an applicant. Some of these unknowns are more related to Caltrans issues/concerns (traffic/access), Fresno County issues/concerns (traffic, tax sharing, ect.), public safety (police and fire response times) and public utilities such as water availability, sewer, gas and power. In addition, any new development would require land use entitlement permitting such as a general plan amendment, re-zone (map revision and text amendment), environmental (EIR including associated studies), Master Site Plan, and depending on the development type a parcel map or subdivision map. These are just some of the things that the Council will want to consider if they chose to go down the path of developing this property.

Staff is seeking direction from the Council as to whether they would like to proceed with a council-initiated development plan or wait for development to propose a project and allow them to proceed through the entitlement permitting process and address future issues as they arise. If the Council does not want to substantially develop this property for commercial use, the council could proceed with a GPA and Rezone to accommodate outdoor commercial cannabis cultivation similar to that of hemp currently permitted in the County which staff would anticipate having limited impacts to the surrounding area such as traffic and other public facilities. If the council chooses to proceed in this direction staff would schedule a meeting with the County to discuss the proposed rezone and general plan amendment for any potential concerns on their part.

Attachments: Land Use Diagram, Setback Map, Location Map

Possible revenue from development could range from, but not limited to, property tax, sales tax, cannabis licensing revenue and cannabis taxes.