Two upcoming meetings, one Wednesday and one on December 6, will determine development on the unincorporated Midcoast for the foreseeable future.
The County has released the preliminary staff report on the proposed Midcoast Local Coastal Program (LCP) update. This is a crucial process in determining the future of development on the unincorporated Midcoast (Montara, Moss Beach, and El Granada). The LCP is used by county and the Coastal Commission in evaluating development decisions.
The original proposed update was written by the Midcoast Community Council (MCC), which was elected by the residents of the Midcoast.
The County Board of Supervisors has been reviewing the proposal and created a subcommittee to write a set of guiding principles to be used in evaluating it. The subcommittee has met five times and made some recommendations to the full Board, and the Board has taken tentative action on some recommendations and asked for additional staff research on others.
The original proposal, background, staff responses and recommendations are all reviewed in a staff report released November 9. You can download the 50-page report from Coastsider [PDF].
The MCC will discuss the report on Wednesday, November 16 at 7:30 PM at the 3-0 Café at the HMB Airport.
The Board of Supervisors will meet on the Coastside at a location to be chosen on Tuesday, December 6 from 2pm to 5pm.
Local Coastal Programs (LCPs) are the basic planning tools used by the Coastal Commission and coastal communities. According to the Coastal Commission:
LCPs identify the location, type, densities and other ground-rules for future development in the coastal zone portions of the 73 cities and counties along the coast. Each LCP includes a land-use plan and its implementing measures (e.g., zoning ordinances). Prepared by local government, these programs govern decisions that determine the short- and long-term conservation and use of coastal resources.
After an LCP has been finally approved, the Commission’s coastal permitting authority over most new development is transferred to the local government. The Commission retains permanent coastal permit jurisdiction over development proposed on the immediate shoreline (tidelands, submerged lands, and public trust lands).
Please review the report and attend the meeting on Wednesday. Let’s discuss the LCP revision here, and let’s work to get a big turnout for the Board of Supervisors Coastside meeting on December 6.
Not sure I can make it to the meeting, so below are a couple of comments on “Key Issue #3, Infrastructure Demand at Buildout” which is discussed starting on page 2 of the staff report.
- The discussion here conveniently omits a paragraph titled “Alignment With Principles,” unlike the discussion of the subsequent Key Issues. Maybe this is due to the fact that the subcommitee’s recommendations are not consistent with their own principles approved back in June.
The principles stated that “Infrastructure capacity will be in response to LCP land use policy, not vice versa.” But notice here that the subcommitee appears to be recommending expansion of the water supply to serve the Midcoast in “Phase 2” (i.e., beyond Phase 1 buildout) without regard to any land-use policy that would justify the need to do so. They appear to be saying: “If we build it, they will come.”
- None of the subcommitee’s recommendations reflect the valuable input provided by the Coastal Commission staff in a letter to the Board of Supervisors dated February 16, 2005. Some relevant quotes from that letter are shown below:
“Plans for expanding the capacity of public works such as sewer and water that can be potentially growth inducing and lead to greater traffic should only proceed after roadways capacity has been increased sufficiently. However, we realize that the potential to significantly improve Highway 1 and 92 are extremely limited, therefore, the more realistic solution for easing traffic congestion in the area is to reduce total demand on the roadways. Policies should prohibit potentially growth inducing public works projects and reduce the amount of available opportunities for new development.”
and…
“To avoid unnecessary conflict in future development proposals, we recommend that the LCP language clarify that the buildout estimates are the planned theoretical maximum buildout of the community, assuming consistency with all other LCP policies. In other words, the LCP should acknowledge that the buildout estimates may not account for the reductions in density that consistency with other LCP policies may dictate given the constraints of any given parcel (e.g. the presence of sensitive habitats, steep slopes, significant views, etc.), and are therefore not an entitlement to a particular density or intensity of development. In addition, the LCP should include a requirement that significant new public works projects be sized and designed based on an updated buildout estimate at the time of the development proposal.”
Some other troubling recommendations are: (1) the subcommitee’s blessing of building houses on any-and-all manner of substandard lots, and (2) automatically designating such projects as “affordable housing” which will then be exempt from the annual growth rate limit (whatever that limit ends up being).
This idea subverts the whole purpose of an annual growth rate limit by allowing the construction of an unlimited number of exempt affordable housing units that will impose just as much stress on Coastside infrastructure (water, sewer, roads, and schools) as any other type of residential housing unit.
Finally, the recommendations in Key Issues #6 and #23 appear to have nothing to do with the Coastal Act per se, but rather are designed to help the County meet its quota for providing new housing in the Bay Area.
Not sure I can make it to the meeting, so below are a couple of comments on “Key Issue #3, Infrastructure Demand at Buildout” which is discussed starting on page 2 of the staff report.
The principles stated that “Infrastructure capacity will be in response to LCP land use policy, not vice versa.” But notice here that the subcommitee appears to be recommending expansion of the water supply to serve the Midcoast in “Phase 2” (i.e., beyond Phase 1 buildout) without regard to any land-use policy that would justify the need to do so. They appear to be saying: “If we build it, they will come.”
“Plans for expanding the capacity of public works such as sewer and water that can be potentially growth inducing and lead to greater traffic should only proceed after roadways capacity has been increased sufficiently. However, we realize that the potential to significantly improve Highway 1 and 92 are extremely limited, therefore, the more realistic solution for easing traffic congestion in the area is to reduce total demand on the roadways. Policies should prohibit potentially growth inducing public works projects and reduce the amount of available opportunities for new development.”
and…
“To avoid unnecessary conflict in future development proposals, we recommend that the LCP language clarify that the buildout estimates are the planned theoretical maximum buildout of the community, assuming consistency with all other LCP policies. In other words, the LCP should acknowledge that the buildout estimates may not account for the reductions in density that consistency with other LCP policies may dictate given the constraints of any given parcel (e.g. the presence of sensitive habitats, steep slopes, significant views, etc.), and are therefore not an entitlement to a particular density or intensity of development. In addition, the LCP should include a requirement that significant new public works projects be sized and designed based on an updated buildout estimate at the time of the development proposal.”
Some other troubling recommendations are: (1) the subcommitee’s blessing of building houses on any-and-all manner of substandard lots, and (2) automatically designating such projects as “affordable housing” which will then be exempt from the annual growth rate limit (whatever that limit ends up being).
This idea subverts the whole purpose of an annual growth rate limit by allowing the construction of an unlimited number of exempt affordable housing units that will impose just as much stress on Coastside infrastructure (water, sewer, roads, and schools) as any other type of residential housing unit.
Finally, the recommendations in Key Issues #6 and #23 appear to have nothing to do with the Coastal Act per se, but rather are designed to help the County meet its quota for providing new housing in the Bay Area.