Reprinted from California Coastwatcher

For years North Pacifica LLC and the City of Pacifica have tried to develop a sand dune and wetlands into a 43-unit residential subdivision, claiming the project was not appealable to the Califnornia Coastal Commission despite the wetlands. After years of litigation, which the City and the developer lost, the Commission voted 9-0 on December 16, 2005 to validate the appeal and accept the matter for future resolution, assuring permanent protection of the significant wetlands onsite and placing any future development of the site in jeopardy. 

On December 16, 2005 the proposal by the City of Pacifica and North Pacifica LLC to build 43-residential units on the property known as the "Pacifica Bowl" came before the Coastal Commission for a determination of whether the project is appealable to the Commission.

Since the City first approved the project in 2002, and throughout the subsequent years of litigation, the developer and the City have argued that the Coastal Commission cannot review the project despite its proximity to the ocean and the existence of wetlands on the property.

Subsequent analysis has shown at least four wetland areas on the property. The permit approved by the City allows grading and vegetation clearance within 100-ft of at least three of the wetland areas, which would violate both the Local Coastal Plan (LCP) and the Coastal Act. Other evidence indicates that the developer has already engaged in unlawful, unpermitted removal of vegetation on the property.

Finally the project came before the Commission on the appealability question on December 16. Dozens of local residents attended the meeting to speak to the Commission regarding the well established wetlands on the site.

In addition, coastal staff in their analysis supported the Commission’s right to hear the appeal, as well as the existence of the wetlands and the permit’s failure to protect the wetlands. The entire staff report can be downloaded at coastal staff report.

The Commission made quick work of the issue, finding that the wetlands onsite are well documented and the project’s appealability to the Commission obvious and certain.

Following the Commissions unanimous support for appealability, one wonders why the developer spent hundreds of thousands of dollars and years litigating the question when simply allowing the appeal in 2002 would have rendered the project reviewed and finally decided years ago. Now the developer is starting over, having invested way too much money in a project that will have to be significantly altered, if it can be approved at all.

In the end the Commission voted 9-0 to hear the appeal, with Commissioners Shallenberger, Wan, Caldwell, Kruer, Reilly, Neely, Clark, Secord and Potter all in support.

The Coastal Commission is trying to deal with an increasing number of requests to build McMansions on previously open agricultural land on the Southcoast, reports the LA Times. The article describes the struggle Mike Polacek, a professed environmentalist, to build a nearly 5,000-square-foot house on Bean Hollow Road, half a mile from the beach.

"The dot-com boom really changed everything," said Peter Douglas, executive director of the commission. "People with wealth buy 50 or 100 acres just to put a starter castle on it; technology allows them to live remotely and commute electronically.

"We have a history of speculators buying ranches for subdivision; but this is a new phenomenon," Douglas said. "Our farm and remote scenic lands are under pressure by people who want to build these mega-homes."

EDITOR’S NOTE: We’re sorry it took a week to get this story online because of the holidays.  We won’t tag this one "Why wait till Wednesday?", but we still beat the Review by a day.

The Half Moon Bay City Council moved ahead with its plans to restructure the city’s Planning Commission at its December 20 meeting.  By a vote of 3-to-2, it directed the City Manager to bring back a draft ordinance that would reduce the size of the planning commission from 7 to 5 members and align the terms of the commissioners to run concurrently with those of the Council members who appointed them. Council member Patridge, Fraser, and McClung voted for the motion, and Grady and Gorn voted against.

Thirteen out of the eighteen speakers argued against changing the structure the planning commission. Included in this group were five sitting planning commissioners [HMB Planning Commission] (Joe Falcone, Jack McCarthy, James Kellenberger, Kevin Lansing, and James Benjamin). Four members of the public argued in favor of the proposed restructuring. Included in this group were George Muteff, the fifth-place finisher in the November 2005 City Council election [Muteff’s smartvoter.org page] and Chris Mickelsen, President of the Coastside County Water District and Chair of the Governmental Affairs Committee of the Half Moon Bay Chamber of Commerce . A full list of speakers with quotes from their public testimony can be found at the end of this article. 

Before to voting on the motion,  Patridge responded to accusations of playing politics by saying "Everything we do up here, most of the time, is politically motivated." Bonnie McClung said "This Council needs to be reflected on the planning commission—-five works better than seven in terms of staff time." Marina Fraser said "There is a real problem with the planning process. People are disgruntled." Later she asked "Do we really need seven people’s opinions on the planning commission? I think it should go to five."

David Gorn said that he thought the majority was pushing a pre-cooked solution, not addressing a real problem. He said "Independence of the planning commission is why the staggered terms are there. When this was brought up eight years ago, there was a referendum. To bring it around again eight years later seems wrong."  Jim Grady said "The planning commission’s purpose is the rule of law. It is not there to represent any perspective of the community. It navigates the details of the California Coastal Act for the City."

Click "read more" to see summaries of the statements of members of the public speaking before the City Council.

Everyone who lives in Half Moon Bay should be at Tuesday’s City Council meeting, at 7:30pm at the Adcock Center.

The new majority of the Half Moon Bay City Council plans major changes to the Planning Commission, and they will have repercussions for years to come.  Even more troubling than the specifics of the proposal (see Lani Ream’s letter on Coastsider) is the complete surprise up and down the Coastside that this is the first priority of the new council.

Bonnie McClung ran on platform that featured openness and an end to secrecy in government. But she somehow forgot to tell us the first thing she was going to do once she got into office was cut the size of the Planning Commission and eliminate its independence. Two weeks ago, she told the County Times it was part of her campaign platform. It would be interesting to know to whom she made that promise. It wasn’t the citizens of Half Moon Bay.

The new configuration of the planning commission will be discussed on Tuesday’s City Council meeting. It’s item number 10: "Discussion and Direction Relative to City Code Chapter 1.24 - Planning Commission and Chapter 2.26 - Park & Recreation Commission". I don’t know how you missed it.

Tuesday night is the time for the citizens of Half Moon Bay to tell the new City Council that they shouldn’t begin their term by delivering on a secret campaign promise.  It will also be the first opportunity for the Review to demonstrate that they’re serious about demanding openness in government, regardless of who is in charge.

ALERT - URGENT - ALERT

They’re at it again. Seven years ago, in 1998, Naomi Patridge and Jerry Donovan, along with Betty Stone, tried to gut the Planning Commission and replace them with their own people. People got mad, gathered signatures for a referendum and stopped them in their tracks.

Pay attention: Naomi is trying to do the exact same thing again.

This Tuesday, the new City Council meets for its first full Council session - with now-mayor Marina Fraser, now-Vice Mayor Naomi Patridge and Bonnie McClung leading the way.

The first order of business: dump the planning commission.

Currently there are 7 Planning Commissioners, and the Council majority wants to eliminate two of them to make it a 5-person commission.

If they’re successful, say goodbye to Kevin Lansing and Planning Commission Vice Chair James Kellenberger.

Worse, Naomi and friends want to make the terms of the commissioners coincide with City Council elections - which, surprise, means that Naomi and McClung get to fire two more commissioners and replace them with whomever they want.

If they’re successful, say goodbye to Sofia Freer and Jack McCarthy.

If Naomi Patridge, Marina Fraser and Bonnie McClung have their way, the Planning Commission is completely gutted in the first meeting of the new City Council. This is a blatantly political, cynical and aggressive move to undermine the Coastal Act and get pro-development people running the Planning Commission.

This cannot happen. They’re trying to do this during the holidays when people aren’t paying attention.

We need your help. This is urgent.

Please come to the City Council meeting on Tuesday, December 20 and make your voice heard. These three Council members need to hear you say:

• No, I do not like sneaky, underhanded politics. Naomi Patridge and Bonnie McClung ran on a platform of open government. this is open government? It’s the epitome of back-room, manipulative politics.
• No, I do not want the Planning Commission changed. The seven-person commission is necessary to allow maximum input into the decisions that affect our coastal area.
• No, I do not want the staggered terms of the Planning Commission to change. These staggered terms are the commission’s only guarantee of independence and objectivity. You can’t rig the Planning Commission to suit your politics.
• Yes, I will sign a referendum - just as hundreds and hundreds of Half Moon Bay citizens signed a referendum eight years ago when you tried this before - because these blatantly political moves must be stopped.

Your participation is vital in this fight. We stopped them on the exact same scheme eight years ago, and we MUST stop them again.

John Lynch
Half Moon Bay

On Tuesday, December 13, the San Mateo County Board of Supervisors continued their hearing at Half Moon Bay, this time in the board’s chambers in Redwood City.  We were there to get the story (it ran on Tuesday) and to get photos of the speakers and summarize their comments.  We’ve added two more pages to our album from the first meeting, and they begin on page 6 of the album.

April Vargas, of the Committee for Green Foothills, wrote an excellent summary of the supervisors’ comments and notes for staff. Click "read more" to read April’s notes.

Lani Ream is a former Chair of the Half Moon Bay Planning Commission. Before she moved out the Coastside in 2004, she was a longtime resident of Half Moon Bay. In 1998, before becoming a Planning Commissioner, she was part of a grass-roots movement that collected over 1000 signatures in less than 10 days to protect the structure of the City’s Planning Commission from politically-motivated tampering.     

A December 7 article in the San Mateo County Times reported that newly-elected Council Members Bonnie McClung and Naomi Patridge will attempt to implement "a plank in their campaign platform" by "downsizing the Planning Commission from seven to five members." In the article, McClung also stated that she wants to "facilitate citizen participation." Both McClung and Patridge took office on Tuesday December 6 after McClung defeated incumbent Mike Ferreria by just 15 votes. A recount requested by Ferreria is currently underway.

Longtime Coastside residents might be feeling a sense of deja vu over the idea of purging the Planning Commission of two members in the aftermath of a City Council election. On January 6, 1998, newly-elected Council Member Betty Stone joined incumbents Jerry Donovan and then-Mayor Naomi Patridge to pass an ordinance that reduced the Planning Commission from seven to five members. [PDF]
 
Prior to the adoption of the 1998 ordinance,input from the public warned that it was "a very bad idea" to "replace our planning commission with a revolving crew of political appointees whose planning horizon is only as far as the next election." [PDF] Stone, Donovan, and Patridge forged ahead and passed the ordinance over the dissent of Council Member Dennis Coleman, while the fifth Council Member, Debbie Ruddock, was absent.

The 1998 City ordinance spurred a group of Half Moon Bay residents, including myself, to circulate a petition in support of a referendum that would overturn the Council’s decision and restore the Planning Commission to its original seven-member configuration. A sample of some of the flyers handed out during the 1998 petition drive can be downloaded from Coastsider.

On Tuesday, February 3, 1998, our group turned in a total of 1,026 signatures, 62 percent more than were needed to force the City Council to either rescind the ordinance or put it up for a Citywide vote [HMB Review story]. On Tuesday, February 17, 1998, the City Council backed down and repealed the ordinance [HMB Review story].   
Some may also recall that back in 1998, Half Moon Bay was in the midst of considering the notorious Wavecrest project for approval at the local level. As part of our petition drive, we surveyed the Planning Departments of Woodside, Los Altos, Los Gatos, Santa Clara, Monterey, and Carmel. All had seven-member Planning Commissions with terms staggered from those of the City Council. In calling around, we heard comments like these:

From Los Gatos, "Concurrent terms would completely politicize a commission that should be an impartial panel of individuals who interpret, to the best of their ability, the land use plan of our City. That would open the door to political favors."

From Los Altos, "The Planning Commission of Los Altos is in no way, at all, tied to the elections of our City Council."

From Woodside, "We recently changed our nominations such that no appointments to the Planning Commission occur either immediately before or after elections to the City Council. We did this in an attempt to make it as hard as possible to politicize our Commission."     

Last week’s online edition of the Half Moon Bay Review also carried a story about the possibility of downsizing the Planning Commission. The Review went to great lengths digging up the history of how the Planning Commission went from five to seven members back in 1996, but curiously omitted any mention of the more recent 1998 attempt at downsizing involving Stone, Donovan, and Patridge. Why do you suppose that is?

Written campaign materials distributed by McClung and Patridge made no mention of their intent to downsize the Planning Commission if elected. [PDF] McClung did not list the downsizing issue as a priority as part of her candidate profile at Smartvoter.org. She did, however, indicate a priority for "developing a long range planning and implementation process." A downsized Commission will be deprived of the knowledge and experience of two additional citizens. How does that improve long range planning and facilitate citizen participation in local government decisions?

McClung’s Smartvoter page lists her top priority as "Establishing open/transparent government practices and ending the polarization present in our politics today." How does a calculated political move to dump Planning Commissioners further that goal?   

Our current seven-member Planning Commission includes an architect, a retired educator, a journalist, a practicing lawyer, a mathematician, an economist, and an engineer. These people give their time and attention to our City with no compensation to help make studied planning decisions. 

The downsizing issue is set to be discussed at the next City Council meeting on Tuesday, December 20, 2005. My advice to Half Moon Bay residents is to step up and once again say "no" to any attempt to politicize the City’s Planning Commission. Do not back down from a referendum. In 1998, it took us less than 10 days to gather the required signatures. Back then, the Planning Departments we talked to were "horrified" by this kind of action.

After hearing more testimony from citizens this morning, the San Mateo County Board of Supervisors is moving ahead with its subcommittee’s recommendations for changes to the Midcoast Local Coastal Program. After an hour of testimony today and three hours last Tuesday, the supervisors made no concessions on the issues raised repeatedly by Coastside citizens: changing the 2% growth rate to 1% to be comparable with Pacific and Half Moon Bay, counting affordable housing units as part of Midcoast growth, rezoning the Montara Bypass as open space, or addressing infrastructure issues before authorizing more growth.

Today’s citizen testimony was weighted more heavily in favor of the subcommittee’s faster-growth (2% per year) recommendations than the slower growth (1% per year ) recommendations of the Midcoast Community Council and county Planning Commission.  Some 19 speakers supported the subcommittee’s recommendations to one degree or another, and 9 spoke in favor of the MCC/Planning Commission version. We’ll post a note when Coastsider’s album of speakers and positions has been updated, later this week.

At the conclusion of an hour of citizen testimony, the only modifications to the plan requested of the staff were to say that Highway 1 would not necessarily be widened continuously between Devil’s Slide and Half Moon Bay, check into the legality of income limits on affordable units at the request of the San Mateo County Association of Realtors, look into flooding and stormwater issues, avoid "checkerboarding" in mergers of substandard lots, look into giving failed wells a higher priority for water connections, and the apparently self-contradictory goal of maintaining the Burnham Strip in El Granada as open space while working with property owners.

Supervisor Rich Gordon said that while the supervisors wanted to preserve the Montara Bypass as open space, they want to work with Caltrans rather than rezoning immediately.

The supervisors will probably not return to the LCP before their meeting on January 24.  At subsequent meetings, the supervisors will make tentative recommendations on those items they have not already addressed and direct staff to draw up the ordinances. So, there will be at least two more public meetings before the whole thing gets sent to the Coastal Commission, but there will be no more public testimony.

More farmers are opting out of the Williamson Act, which offers tax breaks for keeping farmland in agricultural production, reports the Chronicle in an excellent article on the issues with the program.

In September, Roger Nicholson, a longtime Tehama County rancher, took 320 acres of his 7,000-acre ranch near Flournoy out of the Williamson Act, partly because the land abuts two subdivisions.

"I’m not a subdivider or a developer, but there is a lot of value in that land," Nicholson said. "I’ve resisted before but I’m feeling tremendous pressure from those subdivisions."
[...]
The law was signed in 1965, and has become inextricably linked with its author, John Williamson, then the assemblyman representing Kern County.

Farmers in Williamson’s district complained that the practice of making them pay property taxes for the highest and best use of their land rather than agricultural use was hurting their bottom line. Without some tax relief, they would have to give up and sell their land for development, they told Williamson.

Williamson’s solution was to assess agricultural land at a lower rate if the owner agreed to farm the land for 10 years.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Flooding is a serious problem every year in some neighborhoods in Montara.  It is exacerbated by   the removal of trees, exposure of soil, increased hardscaping, and poor drainage.  These combine to increase the amount of runoff and the erosion it causes and reduce the number of places the water can drain or be absorbed.

I met Stephen Lowens, of Montarans United Against Flooding, at the Board of Supervisors hearing on the Local Coastal Program Update.  He came with photos of the flooding in Montara this November and last April, a letter to the supervisors, and proposal for solving the problem. We’re running a copy of his letter and an album of photos of flooding in Montara.  If you have more photos, especially as the rainy season wears on, send them to Coastsider, and we’ll add them to the album.  Click on any image to see the album.

This letter is intended to provide formal input and comment on the Midcoast Local Coastal Program (LCP) Update Project and the public meeting on December 6, 2005.

We have read the staff report prepared by Marcia Raines dated November 9, 2005, and we find that it has a gaping hole.  In the infrastructure section of the report, there are no policies related to flood control or to the stormwater collection system that is in place throughout unincorporated portions of the county.  That system is in significant disrepair and is failing on many counts due to the lack of formal policies in the design, maintenance, management, inspection and enforcement of stormwater collection.  The San Mateo County Department of Public Works has consistently refused to take action on this problem, and we surmise that the lack of official policy is a contributing factor to this lack of action.

Because of the lack of policy, homes are being flooded, soil is being eroded, and silt-laden runoff is entering our streams and the ocean many times a year during the rainy season.  This county has long ignored and buck-passed this issue, and the results are being felt by residents with no power to control the incoming waters.  Homes throughout the midcoast area are being flooded because of Board inaction; and the uncontrolled runoff from new development is the principal cause of this growing problem.  The only way this problem can be solved is for San Mateo County to take action on stormwater management on a comprehensive basis in the Midcoast area.

San Mateo County is far behind all other Bay Area counties in dealing with this issue.  Some counties have developed policies to allow urban development only in cities, where city standards apply.  Several counties have flood control districts.  Others have policies in their General Plan and/or a stormwater management plan.  San Mateo County is alone in avoiding the issue.

Click on "read more" to see the rest of this letter, including proposed policy letter from Montarans United Against Flooding.