Commissioners Greenlight O’Byrnes Ferry Public Park At Lake Tulloch
San Andreas, CA – Plans for a new day-use park with free access to Lake Tulloch have received final approval by the planning commissioners.
Following about three hours of presentations and a public hearing, they passed Thursday morning 4-1 with District 4 Planning Commissioner Kelly Wooster casting the sole dissenting vote.
Five people showed up air concerns during the public hearing, including an immediately adjacent neighbor to the site, located immediately off O’Byrne’s Ferry Road just before Lake Tulloch Bridge on the Calaveras side. He wanted to make sure a screening wall that Tri-Dam agreed to add along their shared property line was on the amended plan. (It was). Planning staff, which recommended project approval, had already addressed the aired concerns in its presentation.
As reported here, features planned for the FERC-approved facility include 15 parking spaces, picnic tables, a restroom, fishing pier, launch area for cartop vessels like paddleboards, canoes, and kayaks, and a gate to ensure that the area is closed to the public at night.
Tri-Dam Project spokesperson Susan Larson says she continues to receive calls that are all in support of the day-use facility with many people additionally asking what amenities it would provide and when they would be available to the public.
Larson points out that her agency’s effort to provide a public access point to the lake itself has been in the making since 2004 and involved project plans initiated at two other different parcels, reaching various stages, before Tri-Dam was able to purchase the O’Byrne’s Ferry Road property, a commercially zoned site that for many years housed a marina with much more intense uses: fueling, a powerboat launch, and various boat rentals.
Moving forward, she shares, “Our goal is to bring forth a quality park at that site to provide residents of Copperopolis and surrounding communities with a nice amenity to enjoy the reservoir at Tulloch.”
Pending an appeal, which would bring the matter before the board of supervisors, Larson says Tri-Dam is hoping to get going as soon as possible. Among the preparations in the wings are bid notices to get engineering plans for submission to the Planning Department along with making applications for the necessary entitlements. She adds her office is already working with the involved agencies. “All of them are poised to react to our applications promptly,” she shares happily. “That is not a concern and we will proceed fairly rapidly thereafter.”
