LAKEPORT, Calif. – A week after the Board of Supervisors gave the go-ahead for a Dollar General store project to move forward in Middletown, it took an opposite direction and denied the appeal of the same developer for a Dollar General store in Kelseyville’s Clear Lake Riviera area.

In a 4-1 vote, with Supervisor Moke Simon the lone dissenter, the board denied the appeal by Texas-based Cross Development for a 9,100-square-foot Dollar General store at 9781 Point Lakeview Road.

Cross Development appealed the Lake County Planning Commission’s February decision to deny the project’s mitigated negative declaration, major use permit and design review.

Board members who opposed the project cited the building’s size and lack of fit with the community, its design and issues with traffic.

District 5 Supervisor Rob Brown, in whose district the project site is located, said that while he’s all for competition, he raised issues with predatory corporate practices and blight, and said the county needs to identify the direction in which it wants to move.

The board’s decision essentially ends the project, as proposed, at that site.

Cross Development, which constructs stores for Tennessee-based Dollar General, has built the Dollar General stores in Clearlake Oaks and Nice.

The company is moving forward with a store at 20900 Highway 29 in Middletown after the board last week granted its appeal of a January planning commission denial of a design review permit for a major use permit.

Cross Development also has applied to the city of Lakeport for architectural and design review for a store project at 1405 S. Main St., just south of the Shoreline Shopping Center, and is exploring a lakeside location at 5905 E. Highway 20 in Lucerne, just three miles from its Nice store.

County Planner Mireya Turner, who presented the item to the board, said the proposed site one-acre site in the Clear Lake Riviera has an existing 3,100-square-foot building. The project plans called for pulling down that structure and replacing it with one nearly three times its size.

Turner said the planning commission denied the project’s major use permit and mitigated negative declaration due to its size and lack of side windows, the single storefront use of the building, negative economic impact on neighboring businesses, noise nuisance of delivery and garbage trucks, being unsafe due to its proximity to a known fault line and negative impacts from traffic on Highway 281 and Point Lakeview Road.

As for the commission’s conclusion on the project’s design review, it additionally found that the building was inconsistent with design guidelines of the Rivieras Area Plan; didn’t meet the spirit and intent of that plan for promoting small, local business; and the size of the building and its signage lighting would detract from the natural beauty of the scenic corridor.

Joe Dell of Cross Development said his company had produced 11 different renditions of the building after meeting with a committee from the Clear Lake Riviera Homeowners Association.

Drawing from a report created for the project by an economist, Dell said the store was expected to have a seven-minute drive time for its average customer, and that households within that drive time have an estimated annual spending of $32 million.

He said the area is underserved in retail options, which leads to “sales leakage” to other areas, an issue they see with other rural areas.

Dell said Dollar General would not put the nearby Riviera Foods out of business. When he said no businesses have closed due to the Clearlake Oaks and Nice stores, audience members laughed, with Board Chair Jeff Smith telling them to stop.

Community members spoke against the project due to impacts on quality of life; the potential for impacting Riviera Foods, which has expanded its fresh produce section and other offerings, and which pays employees more than minimum wage; lack of fit with the community; traffic; and lighting, among other things.

Tom Nixon, president of the Clear Lake Riviera Homeowners Association, said it was clear to him that the majority of people in the area don’t want Dollar General there. He said it wasn’t in the intent of the Rivieras Area Plan to put box stores in that community.

His wife, Val, raised issues with the neighborhood impacts that the store would bring, citing nearly 30 police reports taken in connection to the Nice store over year and a half, 21 of which were for public nuisance, loitering or noise. That didn’t count shoplifting complaints.

Retired District 1 Supervisor Ed Robey said the board members needed to ask Dollar General about how many stores it intends to put in Lake County. He showed a map of six red dots ringing the lake, which identified the sites where stores either exist or are proposed.

“We’ve never faced a situation like this,” Robey said, adding that Dollar General was trying to “infest” the county, and that they were piecemealing their projects.

John Smiraglia, who along with his wife had retired to Lake County, said they got more than 1,650 signatures from Clear Lake Riviera residents against the Dollar General store.

“Your constituents don't want this. They don’t want this. None of us want this,” he told the supervisors, adding that the board needed to follow the majority opinion of constituents.

Middletown Area Merchants Association President Beth Rudiger said the community is now at a point where it can change the perception about Lake County out in the rest of the world.

She said a long-term, big picture approach to the county’s development needs to be adopted, adding that  the association urged them to stop Dollar General.

Napa County residents Linda and Bob Harvey, owners of the proposed store site, both asked for approval. Linda Harvey, a retired nurse, said they have owned the property for several years and haven’t had inquiries from tenants. She acknowledged that the property is in disrepair, that they had stopped attempting to fix it and that even in the sale to Cross Development they were losing money.

During board deliberation, Brown said that, while board members tend to get pigeon-holed as to their viewpoints, they needed to look at things on a case-by-case basis.

He was critical of the impact that Kmart and Walmart have had on Lakeport and Clearlake, respectively, noting that the county needs to not be satisfied with corporate blight just because it brings revenue.

Brown said it was clear to him that the project didn’t meet the spirit and intent of the Rivieras Area Plan, and suggested that in updated versions of community plans, the historical perspective and intent of the community needs to be more clearly spelled out for future use.

Supervisor Tina Scott, who the previous week had voted in support of the Middletown Dollar General appeal, said she didn’t think that a Dollar General would take away from tourism.

However, she added that she didn’t think a store of this size was a fit for the Clear Lake Riviera.

Supervisor Jim Steele said that there were promises from the developer about making the Clearlake Oaks and Nice stores – which were approved in his district before he was elected to the board – look nice. However, he said the stores now don’t look as good as they did when they were new.

He said he didn’t support granting the major use permit or the mitigated negative declaration, adding there was plenty of argument against the latter.

Simon said people need shopping options for their families. He said he has many friends and family members barely making it. “Sometimes you gotta shop what you can afford.”

That’s a real problem in Lake County that Simon said he wants to change. However, he didn’t feel one Dollar General was going to do significant harm.

“The not-in-my-backyard stuff has got to change,” Simon said.

He added, “We’re not here to impede opportunities that need to be given to all constituents.”

Steele replied that there were cogent arguments from neighbors about what they do want in their backyard, citing their concerns about the project’s design.

“These folks basically are saying, ‘Not this big, not this location,’” Steele said.

Brown moved to deny the appeal and direct County Counsel Anita Grant to prepare the accompanying findings, with the board voting 4-1.

Email Elizabeth Larson at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. . Follow her on Twitter, @ERLarson, or Lake County News, @LakeCoNews.