Hollister City Councilwoman Mickie Solorio Luna hosted an informational meeting Aug. 29 for her westside constituents in District 2. She informed them about housing and business development, area parks, industrial pond issues and the water treatment plant. Approximately 30 people attended the meeting, which also accommodated Spanish speakers.
Gabriel Torres, project manager at CHISPA (Community Housing Improvement Systems and Planning Association, Inc.), told those in attendance that the organization is about 40 percent completed with an apartment complex on Buena Vista Road. He said the next phase of the project, consisting of street work, will begin in late September or early October. The project is scheduled to be completed in March 2017 and they will start to take applications in October of this year.
CHISPA the largest private, nonprofit housing developer based in Monterey County provides apartments for low- and moderate-income people in Monterey, San Benito, and Santa Cruz counties. CHISPA will be opening an office on 615 San Benito St. #E. in September. People will be able to get housing applications there along with more information about future developments.
Hollister resident Violeta Sanchez voiced her concern about the growth in Hollister and the impacts it would have on traffic, jobs, along with rising sewer rates and water rates. “I came to Hollister over 40 years ago and it’s a shame that we came to grow roots here and to have people come from Silicon Valley who have good jobs and buy homes while our children who grew up here can’t afford to buy them,” she said.
Hollister City Manager Bill Avera said that in regards to the sewer rates, the city stopped raising them in 2010 and set them at $85 a month, “which is really expensive. However, those fees have maintained the same.” He added that the city is working on updated sewer rates.
In regards to traffic and housing, Avera said, “We understand that on the highways coming to and from town, for instance, the folks that are buying houses here and working in the Silicon Valley, we understand that there is an impact on our existing road system. But I will say this, when impact fees started being collected in the 90s there was already a deficiency then.” He added that impact fees from those commuters help pay for community projects, including roads.
Mary Paxton, program manager for the city planing department, gave updates on a mixed use commercial and residential project that was approved last November. Vista Del Oro, located on the corner of San Juan Highway 156 and Miller Road, will consist of a gated community of condominiums, located behind the Quickstop gas station on Central Avenue and Buena Vista Road, and the commercial buildings located toward Graf Road.
Sanchez, along with other members of the audience, interrupted Paxton’s presentation saying they had failed to receive a notice about the project.
Paxton said that by law, residents were required to have received a letter.
”Those of you who don’t think they received a notice, go to the planning department and give them your address and we will figure out what happened,” added Avera.
Jim Heitzman, general manager of Veolia Environmental Services, informed the attendees about the ongoing industrial pond issue.
‘He said that while the aerator is “old-fashioned,” the city’s growth toward the wastewater pond on Fourth Street/San Juan Highway was a contributing issue. “When they built the waste water pond, they built it away from the city and then the city came to the wastewater facility. There’s no sewage out there; its all tomato waste and the contributing Hollister winds pushing it over.”
In 2014, San Benito Foods tomato cannery contributed to the smell when the bacteria designed to eat up all the waste could not keep up with the amount being produced, prompting some residents to not want to come out of their homes.
One resident also noted that there was a smell coming out of the manholes by the cannery.
Avera said the smell was due to a leak in the valve on West Street and that the city is looking at two options: “We are looking into whether or not we put a new value in where the existing valve is and continue to operate how we were or we actually terminate that and keep the two systems separate,” he said, adding that the valve would likely be replaced when the cannery season is over.
Hollister management services director, Mike Chambless, offered information on upgrades to westside area and other city parks.
“We were able to do some improvements on Park Hill, we spent about $100,000 to $200,000 with the help of a grant on pathways, safety upgrades and playground equipment,” he said.
He also said the city made improvements to the Dunne Park baseball field and tennis courts, expanded and added new features to the skate park, and expand the whale park.
Chambless mentioned that Calaveras Park is not compliant with any of the new safety requirements, so the entire thing, including the concrete, would have to be “redesigned, removed, and rebuilt.”
Since it was an informational meeting, no action was taken, but Luna wanted to encourage people to continue attending these types of meetings.
“I really want to continue this and I know that we will have another one before the end of the year,” she said.