New Hearing Date Set on Canyon Plan

The Diamond Bar Planning Commission on Monday night voted to delay a public hearing on the proposed master planned development in Sandstone Canyon until its April 12 regular meeting.

About 30 residents attended the meeting to voice their concerns over the project. And two private landowners who hold most of the 170 acres in and around the canyon were there to make presentations on their proposed developments.

But with Commissioners David Meyer and Michael Li absent, their colleagues granted the developers’ request to postpone a hearing until the full commission could hear from the developers and residents.

Commissioners said they are still two or three meetings away from being prepared to make a recommendation on the project to the City Council, which cannot vote on it until the city adopts a new General Plan.

City officials hope to have the plan adopted by summer.

At Monday night’s meeting, commissioners asked residents to hold their comments on the Sandstone Canyon development until the April 12 meeting unless they could not attend that meeting.

Several residents chose to speak, telling board members they disapprove of the draft environmental impact report on the development because, among other things, they say it does not adequately address the diversity of wildlife in the canyon or traffic congestion that they say would be created by residents of 200 single-family homes planned for the area.