FREMONT — The Fremont City Council on Tuesday unanimously rejected a developer’s proposal to build 13 homes on long-vacant land adjacent to Interstate 680, saying freeway traffic noise and pollution could endanger and inconvenience future residents.
The developer brought the project to the council on appeal after the city’s planning commission rejected it in February.
“I’m not really sold on this project, I think that we can do better,” Councilwoman Teresa Cox said during Tuesday’s meeting.
The developer, Omaha Fremont LLC, an investment group mainly backed by Gilroy-based Wanmei Properties, proposed building the homes on a 6.8-acre slope off Omaha Way in Warm Springs.
The plan called for two-story houses with four bedrooms, ranging in size from 2,181 to 3,106 square feet, according to a report by the city’s staff, which recommended approval.
Omaha Fremont LLC proposed installing specialized air filtration systems in each home to help cut the effect of freeway pollution.
As for noise, staff said although it would exceed city limits of 60 decibels for all but one of the homes, the council could allow exceptions.
Omaha Fremont LLC representatives said the two homes subject to the loudest noise — 65 decibels — would have “California rooms” at the rear, which staff described as “a covered indoor-outdoor space” that would reduce noise levels by roughly five to eight decibels, bringing it into acceptable levels.
But council members weren’t convinced,
“I just wonder how many people on the development team have kids and how you would feel about telling your kids you can’t go outside because of pollution and noise,” Councilwoman Jenny Kassan said.
“I understand there are other places in Fremont that are close to the freeway, but that doesn’t mean we need to keep perpetuating that. I don’t think it’s right,” Kassan said.
Cox said she was concerned about future residents who “could end up with some kind of cancer or respiratory illness” from living there. “It doesn’t matter how pretty you are going to make the houses and everything, it still poses a problem,” she said.
Councilman Raj Salwan said this proposal gave him a “flashback” to the Metro Crossing project from luxury developer Toll Brothers, which built hundreds of condominiums near Interstate 680 in Warm Springs.
He said he has received many complaints from residents there “about sound and noise and all the difficulties they are having, and even to this day we have not been able to reconcile a lot of them.”
Some council members also expressed concern about the project being located near an earthquake fault trace.
The planning commission voted 6-1 vote on Feb. 11 to deny the project largely because of the noise, and in part because of some needed zoning changes.
Before the project went before the commission, it already faced resistance from dozens of neighbors who formed a group called Save Omaha Way Hills and hired a law firm to push back.
They complained that the planned homes would be much bigger than surrounding ones and could block neighborhood views of Mission Peak, and that excavating some of the hillside that buffers the area from the freeway could expose them to noise, smells and pollution.
They also questioned some of the city and developer’s claims that geotechnical studies show building homes on the slope would be safe.
Hayes Shair, a representative for the developer, said at the meeting that the planning commission’s “uneasiness” about the project wasn’t enough justification to reject it, especially when city planning staff and specialists had reviewed it for safety compliance.
Abhishek Tiwari, who lives near the project site and belongs to Save Omaha Way Hills, said in an interview Tuesday the development “would have been a no brainer” if it was safe.
“The developers have a right to build, but this isn’t a site where you can just go in and start building,” Tiwari said. “There’s a reason the site has been empty for 50 years.”
