At long last, The Divine Group (the folks attempting to annex/build the hotel) released their much talked-about traffic study, along with a water jurisdiction and protected species impact report.https://divinegroup.us/the-inn-at-altamont/
While much could be said about the studies, don't miss the forest for the trees. The main things to notice are as follows:
The traffic study only took into consideration hotel/hotel guest traffic. No restaurant, no bar, no spa, and- most importantly- no event space! If you really believe that after an event for 750 people, traffic is going to peak out around 85 trips over the course of an hour, I don't really know what to tell you. A moderate estimate for the number of cars at a 750 person event is 375 cars (which btw, is 45 more cars than the proposed parking lot holds). For all of those cars to leave if there are only 85 car trips per hour, we're assuming that folks will leave the event with even distribution over the course of FOUR AND A HALF HOURS. Completely nonsense. The study is basically useless in describing the actual impact that the proposed development (which is much more than a hotel) will have on Altamont Rd. and the surrounding intersections. Until we see a traffic report that is based on an accurate description of what the planned development actually is, I would urge everyone to remain incredibly skeptical of the information they released.
From the ITE manual, it looks like restaurant/bar, spa, and event space would dramatically increase traffic. Specifically, the increases are estimated as follows (conservative estimates):
- Restaurant/bar: between 40-100 added car trips during peak hours
- Spa: between 20-50 added car trips during peak hours
- Event Space: 200-300 car trips during peak hours
The study- while I'm sure perfectly accurate relative to what the surveyors were asked to look at- is completely worthless when considering the traffic impact for the real development. Patel quotes 85 cars at peak hours to folks at the community meeting, citing his traffic study. When we look any closer, we see that he underestimates peak hour impact by about SEVENTY FIVE PERCENT. That's a conservative, low-end estimate of 345 car trips per hour during peak hours. It could be even more, based on the range offered by the ITE Trip Generation Manual.
The water jurisdiction survey and the endangered species impact survey only apply to the parcel that The Divine Group wants to use for the TR City Park, not the parcel where they're building the hotel. It's entirely possible that the results would be exactly the same (re: endangered species), and that no bombshells would be dropped re: water jurisdiction, and I'm open to that. But again, these reports have absolutely *nothing* to do with the proposed development or the concerns that folks have about the environmental impact.
The studies/surveys that have been quoted at us for weeks from Patel and his toadies have virtually nothing to do with any of the concerns lodged by folks in opposition. I don't know if they were simply hoping we wouldn't notice these glaring issues?
It should also be noted that Patel (at the Community Meeting) stated that he would be willing to share the broad site plan for the multi-family development. We still haven't seen that, nor do I expect to.
