Residents don't want to see substation through the trees

By Jeff Kearns

PG&E's new Vasona Substation hit another roadblock May 12, when the Planning Commission sent the utility's landscape plan for the site back to the Design Review Committee.

Commissioners said that PG&E's plan to screen the substation structure with trees wasn't good enough.

As part of its approval for the substation, the state Public Utilities Commission told PG&E to bring its landscape plan to the town for approval. Approval for the substation itself came from the PUC last year after a massive outcry from a handful of nearby neighbors.

None of those neighbors were on hand to comment on the screening plans last week. In a stark contrast to earlier hearings, only two residents addressed the issue.

"Make it as big as you can, as fast as you can, and as opaque as you can," Eric Lynch, president of the Wimbledon Place Homeowners Association, requested of PG&E. "It's ugly, but it needs to be there. And since it is there, what we want to do is hide it as much as possible."

The property is bounded by Winchester Boulevard, an office building, Charter Oaks apartments, and Central Fire District offices.

PG&E's proposal also included alternate plans to put up a wooden trellis around the substation or build a façade around it. The commission rejected those ideas.

Commissioners requested bigger trees, double rows of trees, evergreens instead of deciduous, and told PG&E to at least double the 14 trees shown on the plan it brought in last week. The commission also requested a report on the number and health of the trees surrounding the site.

Speaking for PG&E, Robert Matsuoka said that the trees on the site were part of a landscaping plan approved by the town in 1975.

"That's before we knew what this was going to look like," commissioner Katryn Morgan quipped.

PG&E says that it should be done building the substation by the end of May.

In other action, commissioners approved an application to demolish a 1,112-square-foot house (built in 1946) at 244 Bachman Ave. and replace it with a 2,457-square-foot house. The house is in the Almond Grove Historic District, but the Historic Preservation Committee concluded that it doesn't have any historic value.

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