Friday, May 6, turned out to be a perfect day on the Devil’s Slide—sunny, but not too hot. The day started with a bus ride to the groundbreaking site and ended with a party at Half Moon Bay Brewing Company.

The groundbreaking was the reward for years of grueling labor by opponents of a freeway that would have cut through Montara Mountain. The mood of celebration among Coastsiders Friday transcended the artificial nature of the media event. Take a look at tunnel.org if you really want to get some idea of the energy that went into this dream and what the they accomplished. The original Yes on T website is also still online.

I’ve chosen a few pictures that will give you some idea of what Friday was like.

Barry Parr

The groundbreaking took place on state park land, and not at the construction site itself. You could see the actual construction in the background.  The groundbreakers were (right to left) Assemblyman Leland Yee, Caltrans District 4 Director Bijan Sartipi, County Supervisor Rich Gordon, Congressman Tom Lantos, State Senator Jackie Speier, Assemblyman Gene Mullin, and Lennie Roberts.

Barry Parr

This event was made to order for TV.

Barry Parr

There were a lot more dignitaries than tunnel activists at the event.  After the groundbreaking a bunch of the activists delivered a good-natured reminder that it was average citizens who changed Caltrans’s plans for the Coastside.

Click "read more" to see more pictures from the event.

Despite a limitation of 1% on new housing construction, the number of housing units in Half Moon Bay increased by 2.6% in 2004. The city’s growth rate was surpassed only by that of Colma, the cemetery community north of Pacifica, where 286 new residents in two apartment buildings led to a 21% population increase. The data comes from a new study by the California Department of Finance. This growth rate raises questions about exceptions to the city’s and county’s growth limits.

According to planning director Jack Liebster, there were a couple of reasons the growth rate was so high last year.  The growth limit applies to the authorization to build houses. More houses may become occupied in any one year than were authorized, because they may have been authorized in previous years. Over time, this should average out to 1%.  But the biggest contribution came from the senior housing apartments at Lesley Gardens.

This raises the question of how many exceptions to growth limits should be granted in the city or the county.

This week the Review carries a story on a proposed office complex in Moss Beach, near Princeton, which includes a 24 two-bedroom apartments for developmentally disabled adults. In the issue before that, the Review ran a story on whether caretaker apartments in Princeton should be included in the county’s Coastside growth limit.

ADDENDUM:  Let’s be clear. I favor affordable housing for seniors, developmentally disabled folks, caretakers, inlaws, renters, teachers, and the poor. I strongly support setting aside a share of our growth every year for these purposes.

Today is the groundbreaking for the Devil’s Slide Tunnel and there’s coverage in the Mercury News and Chronicle. This is the culmination of ten years of hard work for tunnel advocates, who can hardly believe it’s happening. The big ceremony is at 2pm.

Of course, if you’ve driven on the Slide this week, you know that the ground has already been broken. The Merc reports that the ceremony isn’t taking place at the southern construction site:

Because it’s not safe for people to stand along the highway, it actually will occur a quarter-mile away from where the tunnel’s south portal will be, said Caltrans spokesman Jeff Weiss, in a small area that will accommodate about 30 people. The shovels will dig into dirt hauled in for the occasion from Half Moon Bay.

We’ll have more Tunnel coverage later today.

Caltrans will break ground for the Devil’s Slide Tunnel on Friday, May 6 at 2pm.  It’s going to be a big event, rating visits from California senators Diane Feinstein and Barbara Boxer, congressman Tom Lantos, state senator Jackie Speier, the San Mateo County Board of Supervisors, and others. Following the groundbreaking, there will be a celebration at the Half Moon Bay Brewing Company at 3pm.

The tunnel is expected to take about six years to complete at a cost of $270 million.

On Thursday night, the Half Moon Bay Planning Commission granted a 28 day temporary permit to the Ritz for its event tent. This will give the resort permission to put up the tent while it’s waiting for longer-term approval of its application from the Planning Commission.

The Ritz’s application to erect a 6,000 sq. ft. tent on its property will be considered by the Half Moon Bay Planning Commission for a third time on Thursday night.

The Ritz’s long-term goal is to get approval to put up the tent for events between May and October annually.  Tomorrow night, they’re seeking a 28-day temporary permit to put up the tent until the Planning Commission reviews its application for the period through October on May 12.

The Review reported last week that "The long-term plan calls for an indefinite permit that would allow the tent to be erected each year for 180 days." According to Ritz general manager Paul Ratchford, they would only put up the tent when an event was scheduled and take it down after each event is over. The confusion is understandable, as it’s not clear from the documentation what the resort’s plans are.  Ratchford also told me that he expects to have to re-apply for a permit annually. The Planning Commission could resolve both these questions tomorrow night.

The Ritz has already scheduled the tent space for eleven different events from May 7 to June 26, with clients that include Hewlett Packard, Allegis Capital, and Prudential. It expects the tent to increase its revenue by $1 million per year, which it says would result in $100,000 in tax revenue for the city of Half Moon Bay.

According to planning commissioner Jack McCarthy, "Many people from Ocean Colony testified that they had issues" at the original meeting to discuss the permit on April 11. Among the issues were applicability of the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), parking, hours of operation, access to tennis courts, safety, and noise. The latest application from the Ritz includes a letter from the Ocean Colony Association saying that the Ritz has addressed the issues that Ocean Colony residents have with the tent. At the meeting on Thursday, April 21 the commission declined to rule on the application and put off a decision until Thursday, May 12. According to McCarthy, the decision was delayed to give the commission time to study the application and the community plenty of notice before voting on it.

The hotel was bought by Strategic Hotel Capital last July for $124 million. In its application to put up the tent the Ritz acknowledges that it doesn’t have enough conference rooms or parking, saying "the resort, when it opened, was incomplete on opening day in 2001. The new ownership is developing a master plan for the resort that addresses the shortage of meeting facilities and parking spaces, basically finishing the resort to accommodate demand."  You can download the backup documentation to the Ritz’s application from Coastsider.

The San Mateo County Supervisors met today to consider their vision of the Midcoast. They took comments from interested Coastsiders on a draft statement of principles put together by supervisors Rich Gordon and Jerry Hill, acting as a subcommittee of the Board. Coastsiders from both sides of the growth issue addressed the Board, but most of today’s presentations were from the slow-growth camp. The Board will revise their principles and revisit the entire matter in early June.

The big questions raised by the public speakers were:

(1) What do the principles mean when they refer to "open space" and "will be developed":

"Open space" Midcoast lands will be developed with low intensity uses that are compatible with their community setting, and assure a reasonable exercise of property rights.

(2)  What do they mean by "private property rights":

Private property rights will be respected, and new regulations will not unreasonably downgrade the land use potential of private property.

(3) Does sewer and water infrastructure drive planning, or should our planning determine what our sewer and water capacity should be?

It turns out that "open space" (when it’s in quotes) means space that is perceived to be "open space" because it’s undeveloped, but is still in private hands.  After the meeting, some folks suggested that this specifically means the Burnham Strip in El Granada.

Meanwhile,  the Board says "private property rights" refers to the right to develop undeveloped property, but does not include maintaining the value of the property that is already developed. Supervisor Hill clarified, "Private property rights does not mean property value. It means the right to develop land. It does not mean the rights of neighbors."

And, finally, our local agencies will be called upon to produce enough water to serve the growth planned by the county. As Supervisor Mark Church put it, "Special districts and agencies should accommodate growth."

Several speakers came to speak in favor of property rights. Terry Gossett was there for Californians for Property Rights. CPR posted their own letter to the Supervisors on their new Web site. They’re seeking development of substandard lots to create affordable housing, keeping rural residential areas out of the Montara Water and Sanitary District, and letting urban land owners drill wells until they can get hookups from the water company. They’ve also posted an indictment of Midcoast elected officials, saying "The leadership role in supporting the Supervisors’ moderation sould be assumed by MidCoast elected officials".

For the record, I made the following statement in my two minutes before the Board:

I agree that it makes sense to start with an agreed set of principles before considering changes to the Local Coastal Program.  My concern is that the principles are still pretty vague. I’d suggest two additional, specific principles.

First, recognize explicitly that the Midcoast is unique community and environment deserving preservation.  Under this principle, the CalTrans bypass in Montara and Moss Beach must be rezoned as open space to keep these communities from becoming—after the tunnel is completed—satellite neighborhoods of Pacifica.

Second, I strongly support increased commercial activity on the Coastside.  I propose a principle that gives preference to commercial development in existing, underused downtown areas in Montara, Moss Beach and El Granada over new commercial development in Princeton and near the airport.

The Board plans to have the subcommittee revise their principles based on feedback from this meeting, and to next take up the LCP revision in June.

UPDATE: The San Mateo County Times now has a story on the meeting.

County Board of Supervisors will "discuss its vision for the Midcoast", as part of its consideration of the update to the Midcoast Local Coastal Plan. The meeting will be tomorrow morning at 10am and the public will have an opportunity to speak.

Supervisors Rich Gordon and Jerry Hill have written a memo that will serve as the basis for that discussion. It lists the general principles the could guide the Board’s decision.  You can download a copy of the Board’s discussion draft of the principles from Coastsider. It’s designed as a starting point for the discussion tomorrow, so it’s not a final statement of principles. Click the "read more" link below to see the text of the memo.

This is another opportunity to make yourself heard on the issue of Coastside development in general, and the Caltrans Montara right-of-way in particular.

I’ve read the principles a couple of times and they’re vague enough to support either a decision in favor of developing or preserving the right-of-way as open space. For example, would the right-of-way be considered "open space" or "infill"?  What does "reasonable exercise of property rights" mean when you’re talking about the property rights of the land the state acquired to through eminent domain for a public purpose?

Here’s another item that could be open to interpretation:

The LCP will provide increased opportunities for commercial land uses that can create local jobs, lessen commuter traffic congestion, and contribute to the community’s economic base. Sites at Princeton and Half Moon Bay Airport are considered appropriate locations.

I strongly support increasing commerce on the Coastside, but with lots of empty commercial space in all our downtowns, plenty of low-yield developed commercial space (e.g. storage units and junked vehicles) in Princeton, and Harbor Village coming online, does it make sense to develop additional land for commercial applications? Or should we improve the intensity of existing use?

In an email the Committee for Green Foothills is calling on its friends to ask Assembly Speaker Fabian Nuñez to call for nominations for the Central Coast (including San Mateo County) seat on the Commission.  The seat is currently occupied by Monterey County Supervisor Dave Potter, whose coastal voting record they describe as "abysmal". On Monday, I noted that the Sierra Club was calling for Potter’s replacement.

Click "read more" to see the email from CGF

Volunteers have posted a copy of the 1978 "Montara - Moss Beach - El Granada Community Plan". This must have been a huge effort, because the original document was an 11 x 11 inch comb-bound monster—not a convenient size to scan at all. The plan was created by residents of the San Mateo coastal communities with the aid of County planners.  According to site creator Leonard Woren:

This led to the Land Use Plan which was approved by the Board of Supervisors and the California Coastal Commission. The LUP became part of the Local Coastal Program adopted by the Board of Supervisors and certified by the California Coastal Commission. This visionary Plan has held up through the years because current residents who have seen it have expressed appreciation for it.

In the late 1990’s, the County tried to collect all existing printed copies of the Plan, claiming that it was being updated and that they didn’t want obsolete versions floating around. Of course it was never updated and it seems as though the County is determined to undermine the Plan by allowing all-out development.

If you’re one of those people who can’t get enough of old planning documents (and you know who you are) the Association of Bay Area Governments (ABAG) 1999 study of the challenges faced by Half Moon Bay, the Midcoast and Pacifica is still on ABAG’s site. This "Coastside Subregional Planning Project"  plan specifically references the 1978 Community Plan in its footnotes for "For shoreline access, recreation, open space and resource conservation policies".