The neighborhood is Curtis Park, just south of downtown. The project is called Curtis Park Village. It would include a mix of homes and businesses…and it would be built on the site of a toxic railyard.

Rosanna Herber is president of the Sierra Curtis Neighborhood Association. She says the project’s developer – Paul Petrovich – isn’t following through on a promise to clean the site.

 

“Originally Petrovich Development told us that all of the toxics would be removed. The cost for removing the toxics got higher. And so Petrovich Development is now telling us the toxics will have to remain on site. It really is a change from the original plan.”

 

But developer Paul Petrovich says he’s already removed much of the contaminated dirt. The rest can be contained .

 

“You dig a hole, you line it, you cap the hole with clean dirt and I kept my promise to make sure that nothing that was being developed would have contaminated dirt on it. And this is a well-documented, never-before-found-to-be-a problem method and is actually what the majority of projects do.

 

Curtis Park Village is slated to go before the Sacramento Planning Commission next month. If the project moves forward, City Council members could vote on it by Thanksgiving.