Scots watching Diablo Grande

Garth Stapley, Modesto Bee, California, 27 November 1999

Some people in a rustic, windswept Scottish town overlooking the sea suddenly have a keen interest in the bumpy ride toward development taken by Diablo Grande in Stanislaus County's western hills.

They're intrigued that Diablo Grande kingpin Don Panoz and his lawyers have grappled with people eerily similar to themselves -- people who think Panoz hasn't quite done his environmental homework.

"Troubles across the pond," mused Penny Uprichard of St. Andrews, Scotland, via telephone Friday. She's part of a group that last week launched a bid in a Scottish court to stop Panoz from building a resort there that's similar to Diablo Grande here.

St. Andrews, known to locals as "the grey, old city," is best known as the beloved birthplace of golf. It's also home to one of the world's oldest universities, which boosts the town's population from 14,000 to 20,000 when classes are in session.

The best view of this town is from the nearby cliffs of Kingask -- where Panoz's bulldozers are moving dirt.

"Don Panoz saw this view and he wanted it," Uprichard said. If his dream is realized, St. Andrews residents "looking out will see the glitter of thousands of windows," she said in a downcast tone.

The Bee was unable to contact Panoz for comment Friday.

Panoz so far has come out on top of a bitter row between his development camp and the Review Funding Association, the group of Scottish detractors. He won a "grant of planning permission" from a regional board of officials who had wrested control of the decision from a local panel.

His plans for Kingask include two golf courses and a clubhouse, a 208-bed hotel and conference center, and a health spa.

Diablo Grande already features two golf courses, a clubhouse and vineyards. Plans include four more golf courses, a 204-room hotel and conference center, more vineyards and shops, a health spa, a wilderness center, a research campus, offices, and 500 homes in five villages.

Critics here, using environmental law, persuaded a judge in July to call a halt to Diablo Grande, first approved in 1993, until Panoz's people can prove they'll have enough water for the whole ball of wax.

Critics in Scotland hope to persuade a judge to halt that project until he completes an environmental assessment. They hope ultimately that the Scottish Executive, or Parliament administration, will order a full judicial review and "public inquiry."

Uprichard's group was "cheered," she said, to learn via the Internet that Diablo Grande had been stalled.

Steve Burke, the Modesto activist who has kept legal heat on Diablo Grande for many years, said, "One of Panoz's problems in California is not being willing to abide by environmental rules. (Scottish concerns) sounds like another one of those."

But Panoz's team has every intention of getting Diablo Grande back on track in short order.

Working with Stanislaus County officials, who remain solidly behind the Diablo Grande development, Panoz's team has scaled back its request for entitlements to match the amount of water they've already secured. They're looking now for permission to build only the hotel, winery, shopping center, tennis club and spa.

Diablo Grande is in the arid western hills, far from the rich valley floor, a location that supporters say is the perfect answer to environmentalists' cries against gobbling prime farmland. Also, the project would generate thousands of jobs and stimulate the regional economy, supporters say.

County supervisors are scheduled to consider first-phase Diablo Grande plans at 9:30 a.m. Dec. 7 in downtown Modesto's Tenth Street Place.