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Tulare County RMA announces $25 million Matheny Tract sewer award, additional grants and digital permitting plans
Summary
Tulare County planning director Aaron Bach told the commission the county received $25 million for a Matheny Tract sewer project, expects design by 2026 and construction by 2027, and reported other grants and digital-permitting improvements.
Aaron Bach, planning director for Tulare County, told the Planning Commission that the Resource Management Agency recently secured a $25,000,000 award for the Matheny Tract Sewer Project and outlined a schedule the county expects to complete design in about a year and construction in roughly two years, with full project completion anticipated by 2027.
Bach said the sewer work will be a pipeline connecting to the city wastewater treatment plant; he further reported an additional roughly $10,000,000 award from the State Water Resources Control Board for septic‑tank abandonment in the same area. Bach said the additional funding does not automatically require property owners to abandon existing septic systems, and described an 80 percent rights‑of‑entry threshold used to determine whether a project could be funded as a grant rather than a loan.
“The city has been on board helping us for the last three years,” Bach said, describing multi‑agency coordination. He said the county will also seek grant funds for street repairs where trenching is necessary and noted hope that U.S. EPA funding opportunities could support larger street projects by 2027.
Bach also announced the county received a $1,250,000 grant tied to pro‑housing certification from the State Department of Housing and Community Development to support housing rehabilitation work. He said the county is moving toward online planning application submittals within the next two months, mirroring prior online building‑permit modernization, and plans to provide kiosks in the Government Plaza building to assist customers who bring paper applications.
On zoning, Bach said staff has returned the proposed zoning ordinance to county staff for additional CEQA work and that an environmental impact report (EIR) is being prepared internally; he said the zoning package is expected to be taken to the Board of Supervisors around December.
Bach characterized the Matheny Tract effort as a multi‑year undertaking involving state agencies and local partners, and thanked county RMA staff for their work to secure funding and advance coordination.
