Benicia First!

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Are you aware that the Benicia Business Park project, as currently proposed by Discovery Builders (a Seeno company), violates the essential vision of our General Plan?

The (revised 2008) Project would:

• Develop, over 20 years, 527.8 acres of undeveloped land across from the Industrial Park along East 2nd St., from Industrial Way to Lake Herman Road.
• Level the hills, excavating 4 million cubic yards of soil.
• Build 35 acres of commercial near I-680/Lake Herman Road intersection with uncertain tenancy (picture Gateway Plaza off I-80 and Auto Row on Columbus Parkway in Vallejo). This commercial zone would be Phase I, with expected completion taking 5-7 years.
• Build 150 acres of light industrial, half of it designated for industrial warehouse, and half for "flex use".
• Jobs provided will be primarily low skill/low wage; 75% are expected to be filled by out of town commuters.
• Increase traffic and congestion: 51,000 daily auto trips.
• Increase vehicle trips per day on E. 2nd Street by 200%, impacting Semple Elementary School and surrounding neighborhoods, threatening public health and safety.
• The 2008 EIR Addendum confirms that this project will result in "significant unavoidable air pollution impacts" which will severely inhibit our ability to reduce our carbon footprint in the coming years.
• There was no Environmental Impact Report (EIR) prepared for the revised project (only a cursory EIR Addendum tacked on to the EIR of the previous project).
• There is no Economic Impact Report for the revised project that will quantify whether the project will result in the fiscal benefits to the city that it claims.
• There is no updated Urban Decay Analysis for the revised project to quantify whether the commercial uses of the project will result in urban decay pressures on our central downtown core business district.

This project is simply inappropriate for Benicia.
It doesn't fit our General Plan vision, or our employment demographics, or the air quality requirements and energy constraints that we face in the 21st Century. 

Although commercial and light industrial use is permitted for this property, the project, as currently designed, would radically and negatively change the character and livability of Benicia forever.

We need a new redesigned project that “fits” our General Plan vision.
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A Positive Alternative:

We have great concern about the proposed Seeno project, its size, conceptual design  and obvious impacts, including many not subject to adequate mitigation.  What is entailed in this project as designed will irrevocably alter the character and quality of life of Benicia without the  promise of a viable, prosperous long term future.   

We do not believe that Benicia should settle for a backward oriented, conventional project framed as something of an extension of our present industrial park.  The long term economic viability of that static twentieth century model would be in great doubt.

We believe that the site, the landscape, the quality of Benicia and its population make it an ideal setting for the types of creative, research oriented companies and enterprises that will be shaping the future of our country.   We believe that a development that uses the beauty of our landscape as an  asset is preferable to one that destroys it.

The country is beginning to awaken to concepts of sustainability, of green enterprises, of a future not dependent upon a petroleum economy and it is hungry for ideas.  Numerous cities and towns are beginning to respond with projects and ideas for that future.  We believe that Benicia has a unique opportunity to be  among them.

There has already been talk of searching for a research and development center, that itself becomes  a magnet for other creative and future oriented new enterprises.   We would like to work with other groups and  individuals in developing plans for such a  search and developing the criteria for the type of development in which all Benicians can have  confidence and pride. 

We believe that Benicians working together can frame such a future for  Benicia and we pledge to do  everything in our power to assist in achieving that end.