Ferrini Ranch lawsuits: First of three settles.

One down, two to go. 

County officials have reached a settlement agreement with the plaintiffs in one of three lawsuits concerning Ferrini Ranch, a 185-home development on 860 acres along Highway 68 stretching five miles from River Road to San Benancio Canyon. 

The county Board of Supervisors approved the controversial project on a 3-2 vote nearly a year ago, on Dec. 9, 2014. 

In January, three parties sued: land-use watchdogs LandWatch and the Highway 68 Coalition argue there were deficiencies in the environmental impact report, which details the environmental impacts of the project. 

Another lawsuit was filed by California Utilities Service—the private sewer utility company, under the same ownership as East Salinas water company Alco, which currently serves the Toro Park neighborhood off Highway 68. 

Retired County Supervisor Lou Calcagno became the critical swing vote on the Ferrini Ranch project, and in the eleventh hour he added a condition of approval. 

Calcagno voted yes on the project with the expectation that the developer, Mark Kelton of Santa Monica-based Domain Corp., put $425,000 into a fund to create a Toro Area Community Services District.

That public district would then buy out the private utility company California Utilities Service, and then the new district would build a pipeline to the sewage treatment plant in Marina, where the neighborhood's wastewater could be treated and recycled for another use. (This water recycling system is already in effect for entities that are part of the Monterey Regional Water Pollution Control Agency.) 

The sewer company sued the county in January, and the parties have reached settlement terms. 

Those terms: Drop the community services district requirement from the long list of conditions. 

The county Planning Commission is scheduled to vote on Nov. 18 on whether to delete the requirement from the list of project conditions. (They don't have a final thumbs up or down; instead, they'll make a recommendation to the County Board of Supervisors on whether to make the change, satisfying the terms of the settlement.)