Sherwin Williams Developer Violates Emeryville's Construction and Noise Regulations Over the Last Six Months

Councilman John Bauters Steps Away From Dias, Addresses His Colleagues:

'Do Something to Preserve Neighborhood 
Peace and Quiet'

Planning Director has Dropped the Ball

at Sherwin Williams Site

The developer of the Sherwin Williams housing site has been violating Emeryville’s noise and construction laws over the last six months while City Hall has refused enforcement says City Councilman John Bauters who testified as much at Tuesday’s Council meeting.  Despite numerous complaints from neighbors over the last half a year at the Sherwin Williams site, Emeryville’s largest toxic waste cleanup brownfield site, the responsible department, the Planning Department, has done nothing more than offer verbal compliance requests to the multi-billion dollar housing development corporation says Mr Bauters.

Speaking as a private citizen,
John Bauters called on the City Council
to override the Planning Director and
force the Sherwin Williams developer
to comply with the City's construction
and noise regulations.

At the Tuesday regular City Council meeting, Councilman John Bauters stepped off the Council podium and addressed his colleagues as a private citizen, alerting them to a litany of abuses he says Lennar has engaged in as the developer attempts to speed up their work schedule to begin building the 500 apartments the City Council have approved for the site.  Mr Bauters accuses Lennar of violating myriad noise and construction regulations over the last six months including jack hammering after hours, truck queuing in violation of their agreement, illegal Saturday work and incessant construction activity beginning too early.  The toxic clean up phase of the job is still being completed and is late by several months owing to a large amount of toxic soil the developer is removing that was not planned for.

Councilman Bauters, conflicted out of any decision making at the Council level owing to his living too close to the Sherwin Williams site,  says he and his neighbors living near the site have been beseeching City Planning Director Charlie Bryant to enforce the agreement Lennar has made with the City but they have been rebuffed.  The Planning Director has only offered “verbal requests” to Lennar according to Mr Bauters, actions that have no consequence as far as building a case to force compliance.

The lack of accountability at City Hall for resident’s concerns over the last six months at the Sherwin Williams site contributed to Mr Bauters' exasperation, “Is there ever going to be a time when residents are entitled to peace and quiet in our neighborhood and protected with the conditions of approval that you [the City Council] approved?”  he asked.  “Should a developer doing work in the City ever be concerned you will hold them accountable or will they always just get a slap on the wrist for violating local regulations?” he followed.

Owning to what they see as a lack of interest at City Hall in protecting the residents, especially by Planning Director Bryant, Mr Bauters and his neighbors have drawn up a list of two new provisions they see as being necessary to force Lennar into compliance with their development agreement.  The City should amend the Municipal Code to remove a clause that permits executive decisions from the Planning Director in such matters and give it to the City Manager they say.  The neighbors also request the start up time allowed on all Emeryville construction sites be changed from 7 am to 8 am.

The Tattler recently published a Department of Toxic Substance Control whistleblower’s account of Lennar’s actions at the Sherwin site after the former project manager for the cleanup charged his agency and Lennar with conspiring to forgo due diligence in the name of speeding up the cleanup work.  The whistleblower, DTSC employee Tom Price, says the fast and loose work done by Lennar and overseen by DTSC, enabled arsenic laden groundwater to leach past extraction wells for three years and rather than using standard cleanup protocols regarding volatile organic compounds, the developer instead just dug up wholesale, vast amount of soil to truck off the site, an action Mr Price compared with “strip mining”.  It is this improper strip mining that has pushed the schedule back and that’s likely responsible for the developer to now seek to cut the corners that have impacted the neighbors over the last six months. 
The City has been apprised of the violations with regard to the improper arsenic and VOC removal but so far have not yet responded.  If the allegations from Tom Price prove to be sustained, the actions of Lennar would constitute a breech of the Remedial Action Plan made in good faith with the City and theoretically, the developer’s ‘grading permit’ could be revoked says Mr Price.

Tuesday night, the talk was not of arsenic and VOCs but rather the illegal construction activity over the last six months.  Mr Bauters did not receive an answer to his complaints at the Tuesday Council meeting but he did take umbrage with the City's lackadaisical attitude shown to the neighbors, “There is no evidence that staff and the City has taken seriously, our [the neighbors] efforts to have this curbed and to have Lennar fully comply with you, the City Council” he said.

The commentary from Mr Bauters begins at 13:15: