Mountain Springs Community Project Manager Ron Kopf was Thursday´s KVML Newsmaker of the Day.
Nearly one decade ago, Tuolumne County had adopted a General Plan which had allowed for up to 4000 new homes.
In 2001, the Tuolumne County Board of Supervisors had approved Mountain Spring´s submission for 2,076 homes and 200 hotel rooms located just a few miles south of Hwy 108 off Lime Kiln Road.
After numerous delays, public hearings, threats of public action and vocal opposition from various local organizations, Kopf feels that now, almost ten years later, Mountain Springs is a well planned community that most local residents will be satisfied with.
Kopf said, “The current plan that we will present before the Tuolumne County Planning Commission, calls for 600 homes with a related business center that contains the hotel component. There are still seven miles of community trail systems and four separate parks. A little more than half of the community is now open parks and recreation. Additionally, we´ve left 160 acres of agricultural land.”
Although Kopf feels that this will be a wonderful showpiece for Tuolumne County, he wonders if the project may have had an easier time in a neighboring County.
Kopf said that recent history shows that Calaveras County has been much easier for building planned growth communities, however, Mountain Springs was researched for and is ideally suited for Tuolumne.
For more information on Mountain Springs, log onto www.mountainspringscommunity.com
The Newsmaker of the Day can be heard each weekday morning at 6:47, 7:47 and 8:47 on AM-1450 KVML.
Written by Mark Truppner
This post was last modified on 01/31/2009 1:38 pm