The Examiner has a short piece on the San Mateo County Board of Supervisors hearing on the proposed update to the Local Coastal Plan, which tookj place last Tuesday.

The currently approved buildout would cause a 55 percent shortfall of the area’s water supply and worsen traffic on state highways 1 and 92 from "congestion" to "gridlock" by 2010 unless coastside infrastructure is expanded to keep up, according to county planner George Bergman.

The amended 1980 Midcoast Local Coastal Program allows for as many as 7,153 housing units to be built on county lands in Moss Beach, El Granada, Miramar and Princeton, 48 percent more than the existing 3,719 residences.

That’s actually a 92 percent increase.

The story quotes a builder and two real estate agents, whom it describes as "residents".

The supervisors decided to wait until the county Planning and Building Division could provide details on how much additional water, sewer treatment and road widening would be feasible for the midcoast.

The next hearing will be at the March 29 Board of Supervisors meeting. The supervisors plan to take their final vote on the Midcoast revisions April 26.

Wavecrest isn’t requesting Section 404 permit for mitigation of the development.  According to the Army Corps of Engineers, they’re seeking the permit to create the ponds and the trail in the wetlands portion of Wavecrest.  The development is believed to be outside the Corps’ jurisdiction, and the wetlands delineation will determine if that is correct.

According to Holly Costa of the Corps, "asking for mitigation for impacts to areas outside of our jurisdiction is complicated, but not impossible if considered necessary.  Whether that’s a necessity for this project will be determined through the project review and through consultation with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service."

So, I don’t think the Review was incorrect to say that Wavecrest is talking to the US Fish and Wildlife Service. They’re apparently still talking to the USFWS about the development itself and the breeding ponds may be part of that negotiation.

More as I learn it, but I wanted to make sure to set the record straight.

Wavecrest’s developers have applied with the US Army Corps of Engineers for a permit to build on their property, which has been found to include wetlands and habitat for the endangered California Red-Legged Frog.

The application for a permit under Section 404 of the Clean Water Act proposes the construction of a couple of California Red-legged Frog breeding ponds within the delineated wetlands on the Wavecrest site. A recreational trail is also proposed.

The Corps has not yet reviewed the application, according to Holly Costa, Regulatory Project Manager with the Corps.

The first step in the process would be a new delineation of wetlands on the property. The last delineation was approved in 1999 and expired after five years. According to Costa, the earliest this could begin would be April.

The process would also require the Corps to consult with the US Fish and Wildlife Service under Section 7 of the Endangered Species Act for potential effects on Red-Legged Frogs and San Francisco Garter Snakes.

A section 404 permit also requires a 401 Water Quality Certification, which is issued by the State Water Quality Control Board, via a Regional Water Quality Control Board; and, for projects such as Wavecrest that fall within the Coastal Zone, California Coastal Commission approval.  Without either of these, the Section 404 authorization is invalid.

CORRECTION: The original version of this story said that Wavecrest’s developers were seeking the Corps’ OK for the mitigation of the development. That’s not correct. They’re seeking the Corps’ OK to build the ponds. A correction with more detail is now online.

I know the city of Half Moon Bay has paved a lot of roads. They paved most of Kelly between Highway 1 and Main Street and most of the southern portion of Main Street just in the week and half since I ran my last pothole story. However, I just received this irresistible photo of Ethan risking his life to help us understand the scale of a pothole on the 400 block of Grove Street.

Why did a drawing in Half Moon Bay’s park grant application merit a front-page story titled "Is park plan already in place?", a ready-made op-ed titled "Does plan already exist for park?", and an editorial that concluded "the planning process is merely a joke"?

No one connected with the process seems to know what the Review is talking about.

The Half Moon Bay City Council made a point of being public about its grant application and made it clear from the outset that any plans in the application were a "place holder". The Review knew about the grant application three months ago. On October 27, 2004, Jeanine Gore reported, "Rollie Wright, parks and recreation director, is applying for two grants, each worth $350,000."

Members of the park design committee continue to believe that the City Council is working with them in good faith, and resent the Review’s treatment of the story.

The park’s current project manager was never in any doubt that the plan in the application was anything other than a place holder. Richard Quadri was hired when Parks and Recreation director Rollie Wright went on leave. In response to questions from committee members prompted by the Review’s coverage, Quadri wrote a memo to dated January 21. He says he was never told the drawing was anything other than a place holder.

City Council was asked at its October 19, 2004 meeting to approve the application for these grant funds.  According to the minutes of that meeting council member Grady pulled the item from the consent calendar "so that the public could be made aware of the details relating to the grant requests".  Parks and Recreation Director Wright provided information for the Council.  Council then approved the application.

At the last Community Park Committee meeting (January 11), the City Manager discussed the grant application and noted that it was submitted as a "place holder".  Since there was only one opportunity to submit an application for these particular funds, it was thought better to submit the application and try to modify it after the design process, rather than let the opportunity pass altogether.

...

When I was hired last month to work on this project, I was told that the design process had not yet begun, and that a citizens’ committee had been appointed for that process.  I have passed this understanding on to all of the design firms that have been under consideration to complete the Master Plan.

Members of the park planning committee are baffled that the Review had made such a big deal about the grant application.

Committee member Ken King told me, "They’ve been very upfront about the grant application. Why would [the Review] attack you for going after supplementary funds? I trust the process. I’m confident that this has been done correctly."

King was very unhappy with the Review’s coverage. When he found out that I was doing a story on the Review’s coverage of the grant application, he went to his computer so he could read me his indignant letter to the editor over the phone.

Committee member Jessica Hopkins told me that she was at the meeting where mayor Mike Ferreira assured the committee that the plans were "only for the purpose of the grant application. I can either believe I’m being lied to or believe they acted in good faith. I can’t believe they’re hiring an architectural firm without using them to do the planning."

Hopkins has no reason to defend the plan in the grant application. She entered the planning process as an advocate for gardens in the park. There are no gardens in the plan that accompanies the grant application.

Hopkins was also baffled by the Review’s coverage of the plan, "Was Jeanine Gore, whom I respect, not in the room?  I’m a former journalist, and I thought it [her story] was irresponsible."

On Tuesday night at 6pm the City Council, Parks and Recreation Commission, and planning committee will review presentations from the three finalist architectural firms.  The proposals from the firms can be dowloaded from the City’s Web site, or from these links:

• Beals Alliance
• MIG
• David Gates & Associates

At the end of the evening, the proposals will be discussed and the City Council will select the firm with input from the committee. The selected firm will work with the committee over the next six to nine months to come up with the plan for the park. The committee members I talked to were looking forward to this meeting and to the process to come.

UPDATE: I just got off the phone with a third member of the park committee,  Cypress Cove resident Steven Stauss.  While he said that he felt that "statements by city officials weren’t crisp enough," Stauss told me, "I’m confident that the city will go forward in an open way. I’m confident that the plan will be the one developed by the architects."

Mike Ferreira took me to task for yesterday’s story about Half Moon Bay’s roads.  He’s pretty proud of the work that the city council has done to improve the streets of the city, which have moved up in 2003 from dead last in 2002. And they have good reason to think they did even better in 2004.

According to City Engineer Paul Nagengast, the city council has authorized spending $1.4 million on capital improvements to Half Moon Bay’s roads since 2002, after years of patching, but no capital expenditure at all.  Paul also sent me a list of 44 stretches of road—23,100 feet of street—that have been improved since October 2003. In other words, this process began about the time the MTC study ended.

Finally, I have my own doubts about the MTC’s numbers, since the unincorporated areas of San Mateo County scored better than Half Moon Bay.  But sometimes I wonder whether the County even knows they have roads in Montara.

Half Moon Bay has some of the worst roads in the Bay Area, and the unincorporated areas of San Mateo County aren’t much better. And if they’re not fixed up, they’re going to start deteriorating faster.  The good news is that their condition is improving.

The Metropolitan Transportation Commission has released a report that examines, among other things, the condition of Bay Area roads, based on data from 2003 and 2002.

According to data reported by the city and county, Half Moon Bay’s roads were 95th out of 106 localities reporting [PDF] and the incorporated areas of San Mateo County were roughly (no pun intended) 60th.

I spoke with MTC pavement maven Theresa Romell, who told me that with a condition of "fair", Half Moon Bay’s roads were in danger of deteriorating much more quickly if they are not repaired right away. HMB roads’ Pavement Condition Index did move up from 48 to 55 between 2002 and 2003. The PCI is derived from the amount of damage, from cracks to potholes, per inspected unit of road.

Unincorporated San Mateo County roads, with a PCI of 63, aren’t that much better.

UPDATE:  City Council member Mike Ferreira and City Engineer Paul Nagengast dispute some of the findings of this study. I’ve posted a followup story.

Metropolitan Transportation Commission

When a road reaches a condition of "fair", its condition deteriorates much more quickly if it is not repaired.  Half Moon Bay is near the top of the "fair" distribution and the County is near the bottom of "good".

The California Coastal Commission has told San Mateo County that it should not have waived a Coastal Development Permit for the filming of "Memoirs of a Geisha" at Fitzgerald Marine Reserve. According to Susan Craig, Coastal Planner with the Commission’s office In Santa Cruz,  the waiver was improperly granted because "temporary events" must last less than two weeks, but the construction of the set, filming, and teardown took longer.

The Commission doesn’t plan any further enforcement, but they have made it clear to the County that a permit would be required for this sort of thing in the future.

Supervisor Rich Gordon told me, "I’m blown away by what was agreed to by County staff. But by the time we found out, the county had a contract with the film company."  He noted that the county has renegotiated to improve the terms of the restoration agreement.

Gordon has asked for a complete report on commercial use of county facilities to be delivered to the Board of Supervisors some time in mid-March. His concern is that decisions of this type should be made by the Board of Supervisors or the Parks and Recreation or Planning Commission—not by County staff.

I visited the filming of "Memoirs of a Geisha" yesterday afternoon around 4pm.  It was crowded, but orderly. I didn’t any obvious evidence of substantially worse degradation than had occurred during the building of the set.

I was impressed with the low level of impact on the neighborhood, given the sheer amount of activity.  With the buses and parking out of the neighborhood, the biggest impact on local streets was from locals who came to get a look at the action.

The biggest impact was probably on the parking lot for the Fitzgerald Marine Reserve, which had been designated the "Base Station" and was filled with trucks and trailers.

Click an any image to see our photo album.

The filming of "Memoirs of a Geisha" at Fitzgerald Marine Preserve will begin tomorrow, Monday morning—about a week sooner than reported in the San Mateo County Times or the HMB Review.  As of Friday afternoon, the escrow account for restoration was still a work in progress.

I found this out from the location manager while touring the site with neighbor Alan Harris today. Harris has brought a geologist and a biologist on the site to get their impression of the damage that could happen as a result and how long it could take to repair.

According to Harris, the impacts on the site could be greater than anyone expects and could last a lot longer.  Some areas of the park may have to be roped off for two to four years so that they are undisturbed while native vegetation is reestablishing itself. The area planned for cameras contains some of the most-native vegetation on the bluff.

Harris’s principal criticism is of the process. "I shouldn’t have had to find a geologist and and biologist," said Harris. "The County should have hired them and presented their findings at a public meeting."

The impact on the neighbors is large as well. There are four large trucks parked on a lot next door to the park, and more will probably arrive as the filming starts. A generator is chugging away in the lot and carpenters are hard at work with power tools.  ATV’s are moving up and down the trails to the film location.

In the park, activity has picked up over the weekend. Paths have been widened from three feet to eight feet. Where the paths have been widened into roads, there are areas where ATV’s have passed one another and widened the road further. There are signs of recent erosion, and the straw meant to protect the new roads has been matted into the mud.  It’s a big operation.

The pictures at right show some of the impact of the filming. Click on any image to see Coastsider’s album of the filming.