Residents ask Riverbank council to extend Riverwalk EIR comment period, cite traffic and floodplain concerns

Several residents urged the Riverbank City Council on May 14 to extend the public comment period for the Riverwalk project’s draft environmental impact report, saying a recently posted traffic study is lengthy and materially affects the EIR’s findings.

"The traffic study, which is well over a hundred pages, was only recently posted to the city's website," said Jamie Eggers, who identified herself as a resident of the unincorporated area within the proposed project boundary. Eggers asked the council to "add additional time for the public to comment," arguing there was too little time to digest the findings.

Other commenters pressed similar concerns. Betsy Walton said she did not see a Spanish version of the traffic report or EIR volume 2 and said a 10-day review window was inadequate. Kent Mitchell said he feared the development’s location on or near the floodplain would make flood insurance hard to obtain and would harm nearby residents. Karen Conrado and other speakers raised levee maintenance and emergency egress worries for the proposed 2,400–3,000-home Riverwalk development.

Commenters repeatedly asked the council either to delay closing public comment or to republish materials with more time for community review. "It seems like the traffic study should have come out either before the EIR or at least the same time as the EIR because it impacts the information in the EIR," Eggers said.

Council did not take immediate action on the Riverwalk comment deadline during the May 14 meeting. The record shows a series of detailed technical and safety concerns from multiple nearby residents — including requests for Spanish translations of key documents and for more time to assess traffic and flood risks — that the council will need to weigh before the EIR comment period ends.

The next procedural step for the project and any changes to the public-comment schedule was not announced at the meeting.