During the summer, its sometimes hard to remember flooding like this in Montara during the winter of 2005-06. Click the photo to see the complete album.

We just had a relatively dry winter, but drainage and flooding are major issues on the Coastside. The County Board of Supervisors has formed a committee of citizens and staff to identify drainage problems and propose solutions.

The first Midcoast Storm Drainage Committee meeting will take place Friday, July 13 from 10:30am to Noon at the Sheriff's Substation at 500 California Avenue, Moss Beach. The Board of Supervisors will appoint committee members at their July 10 regular meeting.

"They’re pretending to be God," Congressman Lantos joked when he saw the simulated stone surfaces at the south portal construction site. It’s probably not the first time anyone has said that about Caltrans, but probably the first time it was intended as a compliment.

Congressman Lantos visited the construction site of the Devil’s Slide Tunnel on Thursday afternoon, May 31. We had an opportunity to drive through the construction at the south portal site, but the real action was at the north portal site, where the bridge over the valley is already beginning to dominate the scene.

Caltrans was eager to show the many places where they had mitigated the loss of wetlands, preserved red-legged frog habitat, and taken smaller steps to ensure the the massive building project did as little collateral damage as possible.

Lantos was clearly happy to see the project getting started. Lantos secured federal funding for a bypass in the early 1980s, and kept it alive until 2005, when the Caltrans finally got approval to build a tunnel instead.

Click any photo to see our album. We’ll update the photos with more detailed captions later.

Within the next two weeks, the first stage of a two stage detour will be in place on Highway 1 near the south portal of the Devil’s Slide Tunnels. Caltrans hasn’t set a firm date for the detour yet.

The detours will be created near the south portal of the planned tunnel. The Stage 1 detour (shown in blue on the first map) will operate until the Stage 2 detour (green on the second map) is built. This second detour creates space needed for tunnel excavation work. Included in the Stage 2 detour plan is a 340 feet long retaining wall on the west side (shown in purple on second map).

My wife and I just moved to Montara with our 10 year-old son, and we feel like we just entered paradise. Sure, it can get a little chilly when the fog comes in and settles for weeks or months, but we’re coming from a decade in Moss Beach so we know the drill. We’d had our eyes on Montara for a long time because the place just seems so charming. We fell in love with it one Halloween when we discovered the amazing community spirit around the witches’ house, with every home in the neighborhood catching the good vibes and doing their best to joyfully mark the occasion.

The witches’ house is just a few bocks away now and we’re very happy here. There is something a little closer, however, that is more troubling- even scary. I’m talking about a certain house being built at 1050 Acacia. There are obviously some serious issues with this development, and a knowledgeable neighbor by the name of Rob Carey has done amazing work to unearth the details of what has gone wrong with this project. As a licensed civil engineer, Rob is well qualified to read a design spec and see how the building fails to adhere to what was planned and approved. He is particularly motivated because his property is so located to be severely impacted by the developer’s apparent deviousness.

So what’s wrong with 1050 Acacia? Where to start. First off, one can see at a glance that it’s too high. I don’t have anything against the general appearance of the house (from my viewpoint) other than what seems like a clearly anomalous height, sitting upon a hill towering over the neighbors. But apparently the hill is not of natural origin. According to Rob there was a defective survey performed which indicated a much higher natural grade and consequently the house was built with the first floor significantly elevated above the original ground, requiring the developer to bring in truckloads of fill, hence the appearance of the house sitting on its own little hill. This isn’t just a subjective issue; there are zoning regulations limiting how high the house can be and this house unambiguously exceeds those regulations. Rob’s calculations show that the overall height is about 30 feet over the natural grade, though it was approved to be 27’ 1" and the legal limit is 28 feet. This might not seem so egregious to constitute a reason for major concern if not for the impact such a change has on the surrounding properties. Rob’s house, directly adjacent on Tamarind, now seems dwarfed by the structure, and his privacy is markedly reduced as the new neighbors’ backyard patio will be at the level of the top of his fence and will provide a clear view down into his bedroom.

The Coastal Commission has put a hold on the construction of a house approved by the Half Moon Bay Planning Commission.

The Planning Commission approved the construction of a large two-story house at 2788 Pullman Avenue, near an intermittent stream and riparian area that provides environmentally sensitive habitat for the California red-legged frog and the San Francisco garter snake.

Professional biologists from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the California Department of Fish and Game notified the City about the existence of this protected habitat in March 2006, as explained in the lengthy Coastal Commission staff report.

The Planning Commission first considered the application in December 2006. The project was continued and then later approved on March 22, 2007 by a vote of 4-1, with two planning commissioners recusing themselves from the hearing.

At its May 9, 2007 meeting in San Pedro, in southern California, the Coastal Commission unanimously agreed there was a "substantial issue" about whether the local decision was legally consistent with the City’s ordinances that mandate buffer zones around sensitive habitat areas. The Coastal Commission will review the project at a future meeting to determine what changes are needed to ensure that the project complies with the city’s ordinances and regulations of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the California Department of Fish and Game.

You can view a video of the May 9 Coastal Commission hearing on the Coastal Commission site. The discussion of the Half Moon Bay project starts at about 19 minutes into the video and runs for about 3 minutes. You can use the slider in the video window to scroll forward to the 19-minute mark.

"Where am I now?"

In this new installment Neil continues his exploration of the local building codes and their unintended consequences. A must-see video for builders and environmentalists alike.

The video is available in two formats: A small Flash version for older computers or slower connections, and a larger Quicktime version for newer computers and faster connections. | Quicktime | Flash |

Even grade-schoolers know Ken Menasco’s name, now.

After she learned I was going to film the Design Review Committee meeting last Thursday, which would be considering the building of two new large houses on Birch Street in Montara, my daughter (a student at Farallone View) asked me whether the builder was the same "bad man" who wanted to build the seven houses immediately adjacent to the elementary school.

"That’s him," I said. "I hope they stop him," she said, "He doesn’t care about anyone but himself."

The adult citizens of Montara felt the same way. About fifty neighbors showed up at the Moss Beach Sheriff’s substation where the meeting was held, cramming the small room. More chairs were brought in but still many had to stand.

My kid and the neighbors all got their wish—both structures were rejected. (Mr. Menasco, who lives now in the East bay, has the right to appeal.)

This video—which is a long one, just over an hour and a half—can be enjoyed on many different levels. At its most basic level, it is a video about a builder who, though he insists he plans to live in one of the houses, has met with little success in making friends with his future neighbors (many of whom called off work to attend this afternoon meeting and who came armed with bar charts, maps, photographs with which to attack the proposed buildings). The neighbors were, almost universally, intensely hostile to the proposal.

But it is also interesting to watch this as an example of a community choosing its own destiny. The Coastsiders made it clear in their public comments that they have grown tired of seeing the limits of the building code treated as a standard rather than a maximum and have grown angry over builders doing everything possible to enlarge the size of their structures without concern for the character of the community or the well-being of the neighbors.

There is yet another proposal for a new house on the triangular lot between Farallone View Elementary and 3rd street. This proposal involves opening up Kanoff Street to traffic next to the school, as well as, creating additional water runoff downstream of the construction.

We have been told by the county that the Coastside Design Review Committee’s primary objective of this meeting is to consider the appropriateness of the structure itself.  The community will also have an opportunity to identify items that should be considered in future reviews.

If you are interested in hearing more about this proposed construction, as well as, entering your opinion re: the proposal, attend the review meeting on Thursday, April 12th at 1:30 p.m. at the Sheriff’s Office in Moss Beach.

Mary Duffy
Montara

KQED’s new science and environment show "Quest" has done a radio report on the Devil’s Slide tunnel  There is also a series of photos of the construction site on Flickr.

The Sierra Club’s director for coastal programs Mark Massara has sent a letter [Last letter on page] in support of the Coastal Commission’s inquiry into the county’s LCP Update [pdf of letters], and on the infrastructure improvement issues in particular:

[Supervisor Rich Gordon’s] quip that "we must build infrastructure to the rate of development" (development that he approves, by the way) is dead bang wrong on the law and the Coastal Act. A bedrock foundation principal of the California Coastal Act is that infrastructure development is only permitted as needed for the existing population, and specifically not allowed to facilitate new suburban sprawl, no matter how much Supervisor Gordon wants it.