Action Alert: Fairfield Inn proposed on Highway 49 in San Andreas 

Towering 79 feet from street level, St. Charles Hospitality LLC is proposing a 79-room hotel and restaurant on the hillside across from Treats grocery store on Highway 49 in San Andreas. The proposal needs County approval to rezone one of the two parcels from multi-family housing to commercial and to exceed the County’s 45-foot height limit. 

Written comments on the initial study are due September 16. You can view the initial study at the CAP/CPC website here or at the Calaveras County website: https://planning.calaverasgov.us/Projects .

Send your comments to Calaveras County Project Planner Katherine Stefani:  kstefani@calaverascounty.gov.  Please also send your comments to the Planning Commission and the Board of Supervisors at the following email addresses: Commission Clerk Annette Huse, Ahuse@calaverascounty.gov; Planning Commission Chair Michelle Plotnik, mplotnik@calaverascounty.gov; Commissioner Timothy Laddish, TLaddish@calaverascounty.gov;  Commissioner Don Parker, dparker@calaverascounty.gov; Commissioner Hector Lozano,  hlozano@calaverascounty.gov; Commissioner Michael Robie, mrobie@calaverascounty.gov; and Board of Supervisors Clerk Rebecca Turner, bosclerk@calaverascounty.gov. 

Questions

This hotel and restaurant project poses some problematic questions which, with some cooperative effort, can be answered and resolved.

Why so big? Other Fairfield Inns in busier more populous locations are smaller. The Tracy Fairfield Inn off of Interstate 580 has only three floors and 64 rooms. The Fairfield Inn near the Sacramento Airport in Woodland is only three floors and has only 72 rooms. It seems like the Fairfield Inn in San Andreas could be smaller given its less populous location, which would allow it to remain within the height limit and alleviate local concerns about the building’s compatibility with San Andreas’ small town character. If the developer is flexible, this problem could be fixed. 

Why so bland? The town of San Andreas is blessed with a number of very attractive historic buildings with many design features that could be emulated or replicated in new construction to make the town’s  architecture more consistent and more aesthetically pleasing. These include roof lines with multiple peaks, trim around windows, bricks, metal roofs, long windows with painted trim, awnings, recessed doorways, tile accents, and many others. These historic buildings are also painted in multiple attractive colors. 

A modern hotel can fit into the historic designs in a community. For example, the Best Western Motel on Highway 49 in Jackson is composed of two-story brick buildings like those in much of the adjacent historic downtown.  Instead of including more of the town’s historic features, the Fairfield Inn proposal looks very much like the Fairfield Inn buildings in Vacaville and Tracy. If the developer is flexible, design improvements could fix this problem. For example, the Fairfield Inn at Sebastopol includes some attractive design features similar to those found in San Andreas. 

What is taking the County so long to complete design guidelines for San Andreas? Since the 1988 Community Plan, the County promised to adopt design guidelines for the historic area in San Andreas. That was never done. Since 2019, the County General Plan has called for design guidelines to be prepared for community centers, but Mokelumne Hill is the only community that has them. Doesn’t it make more sense to do the very late design guidelines for San Andreas before approving an only recently proposed major development? Approving the design guidelines afterwards is like closing the barn door after the horse has bolted. Would the project proponent be willing to follow those guidelines?      

Why so disengaged from the rest of the community?  Under “packages” the Fairfield Inn website only lists deals on multiple night stays. There is no effort to create specialty packages for tourists to get convenient access to other tourist-serving businesses in the area. A hotel in San Andreas could offer a golf package with transportation to and tee-times at local golf courses, a winery package with transportation to tours and tastings in Murphys, a caving package with transportation to and from tours at a cavern. Other packages could link hotel patrons to non-profit endeavors like Sierra Club guided hikes to spring wildflowers, Winter Wildlands guided snowshoe trips, or Audubon birding trips. Merely listing local attractions on the hotel’s website is far too passive an effort to compete for the time and attention of today’s tourists. Again, if the developer is flexible, this is an enhancement that could be added.

Why so close to the road? Parts of the building and restaurant are proposed to extend right to the edge of the sidewalk. While that is good for pedestrian access, let’s remember why this lot is vacant in the first place. Caltrans demolished the homes on the lot to widen the highway. Perhaps the construction should have a bit of a setback from the sidewalk, just in case Caltrans gets a notion to expand the highway once more in the future, especially given the additional traffic due to the hotel. In addition, the lack of setback complicates visibility for cars trying to enter the road.  

Who will treat the sewage and at what facility? The Initial Study correctly indicates that the San Andreas Sanitation District does not have additional wastewater treatment capacity for infill development. The Initial Study goes on to state that the project will generate nearly 14,000 gallons per day of waste water. The initial study concludes, without any detailed explanation, that sufficient capacity for wastewater treatment exists in the region and that no treatment plant expansion will be required. The County and the applicant need to provide a little significantly more detail than that. Where do they intend to truck or to pipe this sewage for treatment and at what facility? 

How safe and rapidly will vehicle drivers execute peak hour arrivals and departures from the site? We all know how long it takes to wait for the space to pull out and merge with traffic on Highway 49/St. Charles Street. With both a restaurant and a 79-room hotel on site generating a combined total of over 60 peak hour arrivals and departures, these driving maneuvers may be slow and/or hazardous. Perhaps reducing the number of rooms could relieve some of this traffic? 

What happens if the hotel closes? The last thing the economy of San Andreas needs is an eight-story business failure casting its dark shadow over the main street in the middle of town.  All you need to do for proof of the detrimental effects of such an outcome is to drive by the long-defunct K-Mart that greets everyone who enters Amador County on Highway 88. To avoid such long-term blight, some counties are making it a condition of approval for large commercial enterprises to sell or lease the failed business property within one-year of the business closing. Will Calaveras County impose such a condition on this hotel project?