Silk mill condos ‘dead’ after council hearing

<p>Unsuccessful in persuading the City Council to sign off on their project’s expected water use, backers of a condominium project in the old silk mill on Lakeville Street declared their two-year-old proposal dead.</p><p>“They sunk the project,” said Robert Mitchell, managing general partner of Petaluma Preservation Group, after the City Council on Monday night declined to schedule the project for a formal review.</p><p>Such a review would have required the city to find that the project would have no net impact on future water supplies. However, the city says that determination can’t be made until after the adoption of a new General Plan, now expected in April, that will spell out new water-conservation rules for development.</p><p>Mitchell’s group disagrees and says the council has the power to schedule a formal review of the project if it wanted to do so. The developer says its water-supply projections show the new condos will use less water than the previous tenant, Sunset Line & Twine, did when it was operating at its peak.</p><p>Mitchell also claimed the council’s decision shows the city is not interested in preserving an historic building.</p><p>“We understand that we’re asking for special treatment,” he said. “But the city fails to come to grips with the fact that this is a special building.”</p><p>The project’s backers urged the council to grant contingent approval of the projected water use and zoning change — from industrial land to residential — based on the expectation that the project would be in compliance with the new General Plan.</p><p>But the city said state environmental law doesn’t allow it to sign off on a project’s water usage until a program exists to supply that water — and until the expanded use of recycled wastewater is OK’d as part of the General Plan, the silk mill and other developments can’t move forward in the review process.</p><p>“That kind of request cannot be legally endorsed by the city,” City Manager Mike Bierman told the council. “What’s before you today is an approach that works for this particular project but cannot be applied citywide.”</p><p>The council voted 5-1, with Councilmember Teresa Barrett voting no and Mayor Pamela Torliatt absent, to schedule what was called a “super-preliminary” review of the project and re-affirm its support for changing the land designation to residential in the new General Plan.</p><p>But Mitchell said that won’t work for the silk mill’s 26 investors, who are expected to decide this week to pull out of the project.</p><p>“We’ve spent $1.5 million on this project, mostly to carry interest,” he said. “We have investors to protect. It comes to a point where you can’t afford to keep paying the interest — the project has to make a profit.”</p><p>(Contact Corey Young at corey.young@arguscourier.com)</p>