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The current Project description represents the culmination of over five years of planning and refinement by the Red Mountain Resorts, LLC (RMR). RMR began meeting with the County in late 2000 and prepared 11 different concept plans reflecting multiple meetings with County staff and community representatives before submitting a proposed project in late 2001. This project description represents a continuation of that process and responds to comments received pursuant to the 2004 Draft EIR.
Revisions to the plan, since the 2004 draft environmental impact report, include the following items that have improved the resulting environmental impacts:
- Reducing the number of lakefront home lots
- Increasing the plot size of the lakefront home lots (at 515 elevation)
- Reducing the number of lakefront cottage lots
- Removing mini-ranch parcels and reconfiguring lots
- Increasing REC-X-EP acreage
- Reducing golf course acreage and irrigated turf acreage
- Realignment of roadways
- Reducing impacts to Oak woodlands; and
- Reduction in cut and fill volumes
Although the total number of 335 residential lots proposed for the Project has not changed, the mix of lot types has changed. As a result of the change in mix of lot types, the area (in acres) for some of the lot types has also changed, and the total area for residential use has decreased from 583.4 to 498.5 acres.
Twelve cottage lots have been eliminated along the lakeshore to the east of Recreation Lot 4. Waterfront lot sizes have increased on average from approximately 0.78 acres each to approximately 1.07 acres each in order to place building envelopes away from oak woodlands and the lakeshore thus preserving those resources as well as the views from the lake. Lakefront home lots have been reduced from 30 (23.5 acres) to 20 (18.2 acres) and lakefront cottage lots would be reduced from 16 to 5. The Ranch lots of 40 acres each that were part of the original Project design in the eastern portion of the site have been eliminated. There is an increase in Estate lots which now account for the majority of residential acreage (72 percent).
As a result of the design changes throughout the site, changes have been made to the layout of residential streets. The roadways in the area serving the cottage lots have been reconfigured. Two new courts have been added in the western part of the Project to serve the additional Estate lots west of the golf course. This slightly decreases the total area devoted to the roadway system to 74.6 acres.
As a result of the changes to the site layout, the areas proposed for open space and recreation uses have increased significantly. The number of lots devoted to open space recreational uses has increased to 9 while those earmarked for non-development open space is now 28. The increase in the number of open space lots results from more clearly defining the boundaries of those areas and from refining the plans to avoid resources areas such as wetlands and drainages. In addition, clearly preserving wildlife (link to our environment page) movement corridors resulted in more individual lots being designated as open space, both golf and non-development.
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Tuscany Hills is planned as a low-density single-family residential community with an average residential density of 0.30 dwelling units per acre. The proposed project includes 335 single family residential units, 28 lots zoned Recreation-Existing Parcel Size-Environmental Protection (REC-X-EP) with a proposed use as non-development open space, nine recreation lots zoned Recreation-Existing Parcel Size (REC-X) with proposed uses as an 18-hole private, membership only golf course, a private marina, general commercial uses and beach club. The applicant has volunteered to record a restrictive easement on the lots zoned Recreation that would prohibit several of the permitted uses in the Recreation zone including single-family residential and timeshare uses.
The 1,113.63 acre subdivision project site is proposed to have a lot density of one dwelling unit per 3.3 acres (with density transfer, the density would be one dwelling unit per five acres). The project includes an internal roadway network that provides access to the uses proposed on the site. The proposed project provides five different residential densities with home sites ranging from 1/2 acre or less to more than 2.0 acres.
The majority of the lots would be traditional or estate. The Ranch lots of 40 acres each that were part of the original Project design have been eliminated. Lakefront home lots have been reduced from 30 (23.5 acres) to 20 (18.2 acres) and lakefront cottage lots would be reduced from 16 to 5. Waterfront lot sizes have increased on average from approximately 0.78 acres each to 1.07 acres each in order to place building envelopes away from oak woodlands and the lakeshore thus preserving those resources as well as the views from the lake.
More than half of the project site (approximately 55 percent) would be devoted to recreational and open space uses. Thirty percent of the project site would be used as open space retaining much of the existing landscape and terrain. The Project revisions resulted in almost double the amount of preserved, non-recreational open space. The revised Project design preserves the majority of the natural drainages and provides a wildlife movement corridor from adjacent open space through the Project site to the lakefront. The three Recreation lots adjacent to Lake Tulloch, a total of 8.0 acres, will be used for a private marina and related recreational uses and would be available for use to the property owners within the subdivision and their guests. All lots on the project site are surrounded by non-development open space or the golf course. The 18-hole golf course and associated water features is distributed throughout the majority of the site. The overall golf course acreage has also been reduced by approximately 80 acres from the Project described in the Draft EIR. A looped circulation system would provide access to all portions of the project site.
Development of the project would result in a change in land use from the present site conditions, including loss of grazing resources. The proposed land use is consistent with the 1996 Calaveras County General Plan. Through the rezone, the Tuscany Hills project proposes to utilize both clustering and density transfer concepts to minimize environmental impacts.
The project proposes to provide public access to Lake Tulloch. The public lakefront facilities would include parking for approximately 9-10 vehicles at a time, picnic tables and restroom facilities south of the CCWD raw water pump station and would be accessed using the existing road to the CCWD raw water pump station. The public access will also include a handicap accessible, switchback ramp down to the lake's edge, where a beach area would be created.
The project site is currently designated as both FSFR (Future Single Family Residential) and MRA-2A (Mineral Resource Area - 2A)/Timberlands/Dam Inundation Area on the Calaveras County General Plan - Future Land Use Plan (1996). The proposed project requires a general plan amendment changing the MRA-2A General Plan designation to FSFR. The adjacent 561.37 acres of the Rancheria del Rio Estanislao property from which density is being transferred is currently designated FSFR (Future Single Family Residential) and will require a General Plan Amendment to Tuscany Hills in order to identify that all of the density and use potential other than general agricultural uses at the existing parcel size have been transferred.
Existing zoning on the project site includes A1 (General Agriculture) and A1-ME (General Agriculture/Mining Operation). For residential uses, a zoning amendment to R-1 (Single-Family Residential) is proposed for the cottage lots (0.5 acre or less), traditional (1/2-1 acre), estate (1-2 acre), and villa (2+ acre) lots.
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