Bottling water: City report Thursday

2010-08-03T00:39:36Z

On Thursday, Sacramento planning department staff will recommend against requiring a special land use permit for water and beverage bottling companies.

However, city officials and staff will continue to consider creating tiered water rates that could take effect in 2012 or sooner.

Staff from the city's Community Development Department will report to the City Council's Law & Legislation Committee, in response to requests made by council members Kevin McCarty and Lauren Hammond involving Nestlé Waters North America last October.

Bottling plants are permitted in zones approved for light industrial, heavy commercial and heavy industrial businesses in Sacramento. A staff survey found that conditional use permits, which are subject to approval from planning commissions and city councils, aren't required by 28 other California cities with at least one bottling operation. Nestlé operates in only one other city on the list.

"Planning staff finds that a beverage bottling facility is not unique in its water consumption when compared to other commercial and industrial uses and the land use impacts of the use in an industrial zone do not warrant the need for a special permit," staff wrote in a report to the committee.

Officials with the city's Department of Utilities have indicated they'd like to collect water-use data and hire a water rate consultant to help develop a tiered water rate fee structure.

Such data could be available by 2012 as 45,000 residential water customers — about 36 percent of residential clients — transition to metered water rates, according to the report.

McCarty said he will press to implement a tiered structure before 2012 when he soon meets with the city manager's office and utilities department.

"The real issue is what do we charge for our water?" McCarty said Monday. "Water is an increasingly valuable and diminishing commodity, and we ought to be making smart decisions on what we do with our municipal water."

The City Council was not involved in the decision to approve Nestlé opening a plant in McCarty's district in South Sacramento.

The council discussed the plant for the first time Oct. 27 after McCarty and Hammond proposed an emergency ordinance to consider amending the city's zoning code to immediately require a special permit and thus, environmental review, for bottling companies to operate in the city. McCarty also recommended the council consider tiered water rates for such companies.

City Attorney Eileen Teichert told the council that night Nestlé's plant was legal under the city's zoning codes and that a special permit requirement wouldn't apply. At the same time, the Community Development Department's Facilities Permit Program was suspended after the council and city officials learned work had started on the Nestlé plant without a formal building permit or a start-work authorization.

Save Our Water Sacramento, a group formed to oppose the plant, had sought a temporary City Council moratorium on beverage bottling plants in Sacramento at that time.

Hammond, who is on the committee, could not be reached for comment Monday.

The City Council's Law & Legislation Committee meeting will be held at 3 p.m. Thursday at City Hall, 915 I St.

Suzanne Hurt is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press.

City staff seek building code changes

2009-11-10T05:27:54Z

The Sacramento City Council soon may be asked to amend city code to legalize a longtime practice that helped bring about the suspension of the Facilities Permit Program.

In the next few weeks, city staff want to ask the council to allow FPP construction projects to start before building permits are issued — as long as a business has a written start-work authorization from the building division, said David Kwong, the city's Planning Division director.

Staff is working with the city attorney's office to learn if the practice and the building code amendment would be legal, Kwong said.

"What I'd like to do is vet that form with the city attorney's office, make some tweaks and take that to the council," said Kwong, who is also serving as head of the Community Development Department, which oversees the planning and building permits divisions.

The department's director, Bill Thomas, and department supervisor Dan Waters, son of Councilman Robbie Waters, are on paid leave while the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the city and an outside law firm hired by the city look into the department and home building permits approved for the Natomas flood zone despite a ban.

The FPP is intended to speed approval for tenant improvements or renovation of commercial and industrial buildings involving businesses that already have established relationships with the city, Kwong said. If the change were approved, the FPP could resume within about two months, he added.

The city suspended the FPP on Oct. 27 after questions about the program arose in relation to the Nestlé Waters North America water-bottling plant. A stop-work order had been posted on the plant's door Oct. 23 while Councilman Kevin McCarty and other city officials inquired into plant construction.

That's when city officials learned that Nestlé and contractors had begun the first phase of construction work without a formal building permit or start-work authorization. A building inspector who coordinates the FPP had given verbal approval only.

A Nestlé official said at the time that the company had complied with the city's building laws.

The city attorney's office, led by Eileen Teichert, determined the practice was not legal, and that allowing construction to start without a building permit violates city and state codes, Kwong said.

Teichert was out of town and not available to comment.

The use of start-work authorizations rather than building permits for some commercial construction predates the FPP in Sacramento.

"We found there was a common practice dating back to 1992 or 1995," Kwong said. "It seemed like an acceptable practice for 14 years, and they went forward with that."

The practice is used in other cities and was incorporated into the FPP when that program was brought to Sacramento from Portland about four years ago, said Kwong. "It's not something we invented," he said.

As planning division director for four and a half years, Kwong was not involved in building services until three weeks ago.

Sacramento City Manager Ray Kerridge, hired in 2004 as an assistant city manager in charge of development, brought Thomas with him from Portland after developers criticized Sacramento's development application and building permit processes as laborious and confusing.

The two have developed programs to speed the application process and encourage development in Sacramento.

Kerridge began his career in Portland as a building inspector in 1979. After becoming manager of commercial inspections, he developed Portland's Facilities Permit Program and the Commercial Combination Inspection Program.

Portland's FPP was designed to match one building inspection team with a building or group of buildings. That team would do all plan review, permitting and inspections of interior tenant improvements to speed improvements or renovations. Phoenix was the only other city in the country known to have a similar program when Portland's began in 1998.

In Sacramento, an inspection team may be replaced by one building inspector certified in several areas, Kwong said.

According to the city of Sacramento's website, "The FPP facilitates a rapid approval process for tenant alterations and improvements of commercial and industrial facilities, (including) minor tenant improvements, including maintenance, repair and minor alterations; and major interior tenant improvements and remodels. This includes tenant improvements to new and existing structures.

"The FPP is available to owners of commercial and industrial buildings, building management companies, and/or their tenants. The program best serves customers who have on-going interior tenant improvements and where facility maintenance, upgrade and renovation is frequent. A good example is a large shopping center with multiple tenants."

As a newcomer to Sacramento, Nestlé would not fit the program. However, Buzz Oates Real Estate Co., which is leasing the warehouse to Nestlé, or Panattoni Construction, which is overseeing the work, would fit the program as established customers, Kwong said.

Nestlé is the building permit applicant. Panattoni received a start-work authorization for the plant renovation's second phase on Oct. 7.

This is the first time the City Council has been asked to weigh in on the FPP.

State building codes must be reviewed to see if FPP practices would be in violation, or to align new city code with the state. City staff also will look for precedents in other cities and counties that use the start-work authorization form, Kwong said.

Suzanne Hurt is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press.

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Bottling water: City report Thursday

City staff seek building code changes