GRIDLEY, CA (MPG) - The City of Gridley and the Butte County Association of Government (BCAG) have been working in cooperation with Caltrans as part of the State Highway Operation and Protection Program (SHOP) to bring bike and pedestrian updates to the east side of State Route 99.

The project paid for in part by the City of Gridley and BCAG would install curb, gutter and an 8-foot detached bicycle and pedestrian walkway from W. Liberty Road to the south of Gridley to Standish Lane to the north along the east side of SR- 99 along with road surface improvements to extend the life of the roadway.

Caltrans has been meeting with City Administrator Cliff Wagner, City Engineer Dave Harden, and representatives for the Sunrise Senior Housing Development to address a cooperative agreement; a proposed agreement outlining the joint responsibilities for the construction of improvements on Highway 99 that was originally brought to the City in October of 2021 specific to the Sunrise Senior development. This agreement is separate from a future agreement that will be requested from Caltrans when the SHOP project is underway.

In those preliminary discussions and review of the terms set forth by Caltrans in the cooperative agreement, the parties refining the agreement on behalf of the City of Gridley redlined items that the city felt either unnecessary, objectionable, or out of the scope of their legal authority. The documents were returned to Caltrans officials for review and further collaborative work. 

According to the discussion at the July 18th City Council meeting, Caltrans had not responded to the city requested amendments to the agreement. Caltrans did state that the City of Gridley would need to agree to the terms of the original agreement before it [Caltrans] would release and approve an encroachment permit for a development currently underway, senior apartments Sunrise Village. The Sunrise Village apartment complex would bring 37 senior apartment units to Gridley, part of the affordable housing act AB 430.

At the July 18th meeting, elements of the cooperative agreement presented to the city by Caltrans were elevated to the full Council for their review and for legal consult from the City of Gridley’s Attorney, Tony Galyean. City Administrator Cliff Wagner had this to say about the agreement, “In reviewing it with our planner Donna Decker, engineer Dave Harden as well as the city attorney, our findings have been there are elements that would place the city into a position, whereby, we would be required to implement the effective removal of property access of existing property owners – there are a number of other very problematic component pieces of the agreement, but we find it very, very difficult to move forward, given the terms they have put forward to us.” He continues, “It hasn’t been a very cooperative process.”

During this process, the developer of the Sunrise Villages willingly modified, at significant cost, their original plan regarding the entrance to the development off SR-99 to conform to Caltrans requirements in providing adjacent parcels with access from their driveway. In an effort to implement its Access Management Plan to restrict the number of points of ingress and egress from Highway 99 to commercial developments, Caltrans is asking the City of Gridley to require property owners to relinquish their rights of access to the state highway, called “abutter’s rights” and to have projects provide access from joint driveways. These would have access easements recorded to provide access, while simultaneously removing rights of direct access to Highway 99. Additionally, the city is required to enter into the agreement for Caltrans to construct improvements under their SHOP project and conform to the terms outlined in the original agreement submitted to the city.

Caltrans has stated that it intends to withhold the encroachment permit for the further development of the entrance to Sunrise Senior Village. Caltrans is requiring that the City of Gridley become the lead agent in procuring easements from current landowners abutting the project.

It was the opinion of Gridley’s City Council and the City Attorney that what Caltrans was asking the City of Gridley to commit to was out of their scope of authority and ability. The city has no authority to remove access rights from property owners that are contiguous to the state highway. The responsibility to procure right of way, removal or require relinquishment of access rights along the SR-99 corridor is Caltrans because the state highway are lands owned by the state and not the city. Not only that, but additional requirements outlined in the agreement would be problematic for the City of Gridley as well.

To view the full list of requirements set forth by Caltrans to the City of Gridley, please visit http://gridley.ca.us/government-and-departments/city-council/, locate the agenda for July 18th and watch the video of the meeting. Discussion on this topic begins at the time stamp of 12:43 minutes and into the recording posted on the City of Gridley’s website.