Gold Rush stirs up Lode of angst

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By Dana M. Nichols

Record Staff Writer

December 11, 2009 12:00 AM

SUTTER CREEK - Sutter Creek is a national tourist destination and among the cutest Gold Rush-era towns in the Mother Lode. Yet that same phrase - Gold Rush - is now fighting words, because it is the name of a planned 1,334-home development that will more than double the size of the town.

Some say the Gold Rush Ranch and Golf Resort development will destroy the character of the town the Gold Rush built.

"My thought is we are going to lose what makes us special if we are surrounded by these large developments," said Bart Weatherly, who lives in the Amador County town and is spokesman for Preserve Historical Sutter Creek, a group opposing the development.

Others say it is needed economic development that can stabilize a city that is deeply in debt and running budget deficits.

"We really need it as far as fiscally," Sutter Creek Mayor Gary Wooten said. "The whole nation is going through this recession. A few shops are empty downtown. I feel if we have a few more people in the neighborhood, it is going to help downtown."

Wooten rejects the claim that the Gold Rush Ranch project a mile and a half away on Highway 104 will harm downtown's appeal. "It will stay the cute little town it was," he said.

And Wooten said the developers have agreed to a long list of measures intended more than to cover the project's impacts, including providing the town valuable infrastructure such as a school site and an upgraded wastewater treatment plant.

"If we don't grow, then we're going to die," Wooten said.

Some in the town question the financial benefits. Goodwin Group of Sacramento, a consultant hired by the city, recently reported that Gold Rush Ranch at build-out would generate about $1.9 million a year in revenue for the city government but would cost the city about $3.3 million.

City officials say the deal will include mechanisms - likely including a Mello-Roos assessment district - through which households in the project will pay the difference of more than $1,000 a year per home.

And many details are still being worked out, including the extent to which the city will require developers to build revenue-generating parts of the project, such as the commercial center and the golf course, before building the bulk of the homes.

And of course, the project is nearing approval when the housing market is depressed, causing even some city leaders to wonder whether the city will receive the promised benefits.

"It is tremendously bigger than anything ever done (in Sutter Creek), and it is the worst market since, when, the Depression," said Mayor Pro-Tem Tim Murphy, who has publicly expressed doubts about the project.

"If we could do it and all the conditions and the benefits we work out would actually happen, that would be one thing. But if we approve it, and after 20 years, we have part of a project, that's not so good," Murphy said.

Bill Bunce, managing partner for Gold Rush Ranch LLC, declined an oral interview but agreed to answer questions via e-mail.

He was asked if the project can be profitable enough to pay for all the promised mitigations. "In the development of this project, we have worked hard to be good listeners to the concerns of the community," he wrote. "Our final project will provide the resources for many desired local amenities. It was always our goal to create a win-win situation, and we feel we have gone the extra mile to make this be the case."

Asked whether there is a market for new homes in Sutter Creek and when construction might begin, he wrote, "The project development schedule will be driven by market conditions."

Answers such as those worry Weatherly.

"If we don't get the amenities, it will cripple this town," he said. "I don't believe we are going to see it. My gut tells me."

Weatherly's prediction: The current developers and others who buy rights to build portions of the project will come back to the city, say the phasing is no longer viable and ask to build houses first.

If the project is rejected, Sutter Creek will still have to face questions such as how to upgrade its wastewater treatment plant. In fact, the Gold Rush Ranch project began seven years ago with a much smaller proposal that would have built a golf course in part to provide the city a place to dispose of treated wastewater. Even without Gold Rush Ranch, state regulators will continue to press Sutter Creek, just as they are pressing other communities, to upgrade its sewage treatment plant.

Doubling the town's size, however, doesn't seem like a solution to many residents.

"It is just too much," said Lottie Tone, a Sutter Creek resident and elementary school teacher. "I think it would be the end of our darling little, quaint community where people come to get away from the suburbs of Sacramento, Folsom, El Dorado. All those developments."

The City Council will take up the project again Wednesday, possibly voting that night to approve the final environmental impact report, a specific plan, general plan amendments and a "large lot" stage subdivision map.

The meeting has been moved from its usual council chamber location to an auditorium to accommodate all those who are expected to speak.

Contact reporter Dana M. Nichols at (209) 607-1361 or dnichols@recordnet.com.