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Politics & Government

Whole Foods Public Hearing Pulled From Council Agenda

A notice about the change in the agenda went out Wednesday. Discussions reached an apparent impasse in October after the council added a condition of approval to the project plans involving Albany Little League fields.

A public hearing about a involving a Whole Foods grocery store and senior housing, has been postponed indefinitely, according to a notice sent Wednesday by the city. 

The hearing had been planned for .

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The city sent out a notice late Wednesday afternoon, containing only the following update: "The public hearing scheduled for November 21... has been cancelled and will be rescheduled to a future City Council meeting. A public notice for the future hearing will be mailed and posted when the hearing date is determined."

In October, after the project had , the city added a new condition of approval to the project that would have required the University of California to make a written commitment to about the continued use of playing fields in the village.

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Albany Little League officials said they had not been expecting the requirement. The university had previously reached an agreement with Little League to retain access to the fields for a decade. 

said her goal with the requirement had been to include an , which she said she felt was lacking in the agreement as it was designed by the planning commission.

In response to the new requirement, a university attorney sent a to Albany officials indicating that he did not believe the requirement was legal. 

Albany officials responded to the letter with some degree of frustration, indicating that they didn't appreciate what they interpreted as the threat of a possible lawsuit in response to their Little League condition.

City Community Development Jeff Bond said Wednesday afternoon that "the university is reflecting on the and working on trying to come up with solutions to some of the issues that were raised, and they need a little bit more time to do that. We haven't received anything specific from them but I've had a couple conversations with (project manager) Kevin (Hufferd) and I know he's working on that." 

Bond said there's "probably not much chance" of having the item on the Dec. 5 agenda either.

Hufferd was not available for comment late Wednesday afternoon. He had said previously that the university does not plan to sue the city over the addition of the Little League requirement.

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Want updates when we write about development plans for University Village? Click the green "Keep me posted!" button below the story.

. You can watch an archived video of the meeting on KALB here. Use the "Jump To..." menu below the video and select item 8-1 on the agenda to skip directly to the Whole Foods discussion.

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