FORT BRAGG, 12/14/20 — The Zaremba Group, LLC out of Lakewood, Ohio has applied to develop a Dollar General chain store on the corner of South Franklin and Maple streets, just south of Fort Bragg’s core business district. The proposed 9,100 square-foot retail operation would be open every day from 8 a.m. to 9 p.m.
Zaremba Group’s senior vice president John Wojtila said in an interview, “Zaremba has a contingent contract to purchase the property and will then own the property and develop the infrastructure and the building. Dollar General will operate the store.” The property will stay in the hands of Zaremba.
Chantell O’Neal, assistant director for the City of Fort Bragg’s engineering division, explained that city staff determine how a proposed project fits into land use entitlements. “In this particular application,” she said, “the Dollar General project is located outside of Fort Bragg’s Central Business District [CBD] and falls within the city’s General Commercial Zoning category.” Under this classification, development can be more intensive.
“We use land use tables to determine what kind of permit is required,” said O’Neal. “In this case the applicant is required to submit a design review permit [DR] application, and the city has thirty days to look at the project and to determine if it is in alignment with the permit codes and if it is subject to the California Environmental Quality Act [CEQA].“
If not enough information is given, the clock stops and city staff then sets up meetings with the applicant to gather more information. Once the application is complete, it is posted on the city’s website for the public to view. O’Neal said the Dollar General complete application was received on October 26. Dollar General application can be viewed at this link.
Next Steps
A CEQA review is a process whereby it’s determined if a project falls under CEQA — specifically whether the project will result in any adverse environmental impacts. If such adverse impacts are likely, planners must prepare a environmental impact report (EIR) that will contain in-depth information about the potential impacts, measures to reduce or avoid those impacts, and an analysis of alternatives to the project. If a project does not cause any adverse environmental impacts, the City will issue a document known as a negative declaration (ND). A mitigated negative declaration (MND) is applicable when potentially significant effects on the environment exist, but the effects can be mitigated to a point where no significant effect on the environment would occur. Included in the process is the opportunity for the public to review and provide input on NDs, MNDs and EIRs.
The City of Fort Bragg is the lead agency for the CEQA review . “We are in the process of making that CEQA determination right now, and it has not been made yet,” said O’Neal, “And that should happen in the next few days. The staff report will reflect the determination.”
O’Neal explained that since the city does not have adequate planning staff in-house, a planning firm is contracted out for the review process.
O’Neal said, “If the project is determined to fall under CEQA the process that usually takes another 30 to 45 days since it is more work for the review.”
Public Comments
O’Neal said that the public has two possible opportunities to weigh in on the Dollar General project. “If the project falls under CEQA,” she said, “the public can comment on the environmental impact report [EIR] or any of the other designations. If the project does not fall under CEQA, the public has an opportunity to provide comment within the ten days as the project goes to the Planning Commission. In either case, public notices are issued, printed in the Advocate News, posted on the city’s website and at the proposed site.”
The City of Fort Bragg Planning Commission can approve or deny the project. If the project is denied, the applicant can appeal the denial to the city council and the project can be amended or rejected. If the project is approved, the public can also appeal the approval to the City Council.
“All parties have the ability to appeal,” O’Neal said, adding that there is a thousand-dollar fee for appealing to the City Council.
The property where the Dollar General will be built is owned by Thomas A. Carine and Bessie Carine of Saratoga CA. To sign up and receive notifications about public hearing notices for projects before the Fort Bragg City Council or Planning Commission click on NOTIFY ME at the bottom of the city’s web page https://city.fortbragg.com/.
Though I would not dispute the fact that the proposed Dollar General Store could alter feel of downtown Fort Bragg; I do not feel anything in your article really justifies using that headline.
Dollar General is terrible for any community. It treats like a commodity and the money doesn’t stay local it goes to Tennessee. From mismanagement and cheap crappy items sold that belongs at a 99cent store. It would definitely affect The feeling of Ft. Bragg local businesses will be affected negatively . I’ve seen from the inside and out what happens when Dollar general floods a county with their chain stores and destroy small businesses and sucks the life out of the local economy and its community. Ft. Bragg say NO!
seriously?! why not let Willits have this store? they have a much larger riff-raff community to support an enterprise like this: such as single, unwed mothers; the obese; neglected, homeless, drug addict, lowlifes… we don’t need anymore folks like this on the coast. (and in case anyone else is reading this, we also don’t need a Wal-Mart!) also, rents aren’t getting cheaper either on the coast. to those locals who want big-box in our backyard: we need YOU out of here.
Fort Bragg is unlike (and aspires to be unlike) other american towns in that we actually have some semblance of culture which other towns do not and cannot possess — galleries, a cinema that plays art-house films (during the county’s annual film festival), theatre troupes, gorgeous coastal scenery, as well as an aesthetic sensibility that is gradually eroded everytime a big-box store opens in our area.
sure, i understand business is business but we don’t need this business here. take your business elsewhere.
fort bragg can survive covid19, but Dollar General represents a more virulent strain of disease and social malaise that- well, let’s just say we need a DG as much as we need an earthquake that plunges fort bragg into the ocean via tsunami.
if town planning has such a hard-on for a big-box store then why not opt for a Whole Foods or Trader Joe’s instead? no sensible person in the community wants a DG in the middle of town, on the outskirts of town, or ANYWHERE ELSE in the world for that matter!
…I don’t want DG here either, but to dis Willits and the people there is just beyond rude…
Riff-raff? You are pretty dismissive (and inaccurate on the subject) of a lot of different groups. I am not drawn to the idea of a Dollar General Store, either, but I am certainly not so because of snobby ideas like yours. I think stores should serve their communities well and I think we could do better than a Dollar General for that purpose.
Wow, you’re a very judgmental person. Fort Bragg is already going to heck and has been for some years. It’s become unaffordable and when a city relies so heavily on tourism, it’s important to keep in mind that people who work those jobs need food and housing. People who work full time, living in tents or their cars.
You’re unbelievable.
I am a free-market advocate, with heavy social activist tendencies. California, due to restrictions in planning and heavy taxes continues to have a mass exodus of businesses and people priced out of it’s economy. Tesla has relocated most recently to Texas and the line-up to border states like Arizona, Utah, Nevada, Oregon continues. for former low and middle class Californians. The inner-city restrictions for Ft. Bragg may be grand, but choking off availability of “crap sales” to some of Ft. Bragg folks and healthy tax income to the city is reprehensible. Show me some open arms, Mendocino County; your population is shrinking as well.
Skipping past the comments showing extreme derision for the poor among us, I would say this: FB has already dropped the ball on downtown by allowing too many property owners to let their storefronts remain empty so they don’t have to bring them up to code. Thus it is the City of FB that is responsible for the tax base drying up, and now they want to make it look like every other town in the country, because sure, why not? FB has already lost it’s charm, so let’s just send the last of it down the tubes, right?
Hey, you voted for these mooks, so now ya get to live with it
Riff-raff? You are pretty dismissive (and inaccurate on the subject) of a lot of different groups. I am not drawn to the idea of a Dollar General Store, either, but I am certainly not so because of snobby ideas like yours. I think stores should serve their communities well and I think we could do better than a Dollar General for that purpose.
It’s deja voodoo all over again.
I grew up in Santa Rosa and well remember the contentious introduction of the first Walmart store in Sonoma County’s ‘planned community’, Rohnert Park. The city’s intent was to increase the city’s tax revenue by attracting consumers from surrounding communities which was also the major point of contention.
Those fears soon were soon realized as all small merchants in Sonoma County, including Rohnert Park, felt the drop in commerce and empty storefronts became more common. This boon in tax revenue for Rohnert Park was short lived as Santa Rosa, in an effort to recover some of its lost tax revenue, soon allowed another Walmart to be opened within its border, further hastening the degradation of its central district.
Another noticeable side effect of this boondoggle was the loss of product diversity. Soon everybody I knew had the same cheap electronics, furniture, food brands, tools, clothes, etc. as I now did.
Think carefully Fort Bragg, once you invite the devil in you’ll pay hell trying to get rid of him. You have something priceless here, you may not know that until it’s gone. And so cheaply, too?
A dollar general would be awesome, but not downtown. It would ruin the aesthetic. Put it somewhere else.
I look at all the empty store fronts in FB and surrounding area and wonder why a new store needs to be built. Occupy some of these ‘toothless’ spaces crying for some attention. My understanding is that these stores often give up after a few years and they also become another lost ‘tooth’. Something to do with taxes. Cheaper to let it sit idle or put up for sale. A loss leader.The folks in Redwood Valley have been battling these stores that drove out regular storesand then then departed.. Let’s fill those empty spaces before building new. Give them a trial time to prove they are civic and responsible to improving FB.