Op-Ed: Paul Powers and Redwood City Must Start Over

During these long months since the public became aware of Paula Uccelli and the Pauls Corporation's attempt to develop the Pete's Harbor area, many issues have been raised, resulting in a divisive debate about a controversial development proposal.

As the date of our appeal with the City of Redwood City draws closer, Save Pete's Harbor would like to take this opportunity to concentrate on the one issue we have been focused on since day one: the preservation of a truly viable commercial marina open to the boating public on the taxpayer-owned submerged lands that make up the "outer harbor," which are managed by the California State Lands Commission.

Last fall, during the October 30th Planning Commission meeting in which the planned development permit for the Pete's Harbor area was unanimously approved, the city's Planning Manager Blake Lyon made it clear before the commissioners voted that if there were any significant changes to the planned development permit at Pete's Harbor, the development process would have to start over from the beginning.

Since Paul Powers of the Pauls Corporation communicated to the SLC on February 19 that he intends to have a commercial marina be part of his development,[1] Save Pete's Harbor has maintained that the planned development approval process with the City of Redwood City needs to start over.

Amending his plan to include a commercial marina with far more public access needs constitutes a significant, major change to Powers' development proposal. City Manager Bob Bell admits as much himself in a March 4 internal communication, saying that "Paul Powers has amended his project" and that he will write to the SLC about "the importance of interconnectivity of the marina and land side."[2]

In a March 18 letter from the State Lands Commission to Paul Powers' attorney, the Commission also states clearly that the Pauls Corporation's application is now inadequate because Paul Powers is planning for a commercial marina with specific amendments to one of the leases for the submerged lands, as opposed to the private boat slips in his original plan.[3] The State Lands Commission states clearly that they require further documentation to account for the changes to the plan, such as a supplemental environmental impact report (EIR).

If the State Lands Commission is asking for yet another supplemental EIR to be added on to the supplemental EIRs filed in 2007 and 2012, then that clearly indicates the plan needs to start over and that the City must work on a planned development permit for the Pete's Harbor area the right way, with real community input and a proper EIR. The city should also include Pete's Harbor in their Inner Harbor Precise Plan, which is where it belongs.

In contrast to Redwood City's Downtown Precise Plan's greatest strength, which is the holistic vision it presents for the downtown area without arbitrarily excluding certain areas from the plan, the Inner Harbor Precise Plan's weakest aspect is the inexplicable exclusion of the Pete's Harbor area from the plan. The complex nature of the area, with its mix of privately-owned lands and publicly owned submerged lands and its proximity to the refuge at Bair Island and developments currently under construction, indicates strongly that it should be included in the plan, not set aside for a fast-tracked process, which has been controversial. That plan is going off the rails, because it was not handled properly by the players involved.

All this compelling evidence would lead any deliberative person to conclude that the city has no choice but to do the right thing and start the process over with the community. However, Save Pete's Harbor and others in the community are now concerned by some of the communications we've discovered, including correspondence, which shows that the city is willing to overlook the changes to the parking requirements that a truly viable commercial marina would need,[4][5][6] all just to avoid having to admit that the development process would need to start over.

We have also found an e-mail from July of last year in which Paul Powers discusses his plans with the city and says that Paula Uccelli "has known some of the [Planning] Commissioners a long time so I believe this will work out."[7]

As a group whose appeal against Powers' planned development permit is coming up at the next City Council meeting, we are concerned by communications such as these. There is of course nothing wrong with knowing people who are public officials in your community, but we are disappointed that these close relationships between Powers, Ms. Uccelli, and city government did not lead to a development plan or a permitting process for the Pete's Harbor area that included the community or was good for the boating public and the people of the city, who have rightly enjoyed a long history of public access to this vital piece of the Redwood City waterfront. Instead, what we see is the city working against the interests of the community by trying to push this project through on a fast track, even if it means overlooking vital requirements the project now clearly needs in order to preserve a viable commercial marina.

In response to all the changes and new information the community has been receiving about this planned development permit over the last seven months;
to all the complex issues at stake and to the division and community displacement caused by the all-too-facile handling of this process;
and to all the significant amendments to the planned development permit that both the City of Redwood City and the State Lands Commission acknowledge;
Save Pete's Harbor calls upon Redwood City and Paul Powers to start over, this time including the community.

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