MCC Planning and Building Committee meeting, Tuesday CANCELED

Location: Granada Sanitary District Office

504 Ave. Alhambra, 3rd Floor, El Granada

The MCC Planning and Building Committee meetings are an outcome from a discussion from the MCC Regular Meeting of July 27, 2011 around the issues of Zoning, Variances and Usage Permits and the building permit process in the unincorporated MidCoast. Since this is a process that is both confusing and inconsistently enforced, it has led to both community frustration and lawsuits and an inordinate amount of time and money for people to build in the MidCoast.

There has been one preliminary meeting on August 23, 2011 at GSD with a few of the people who expressed interest in helping. Some ideas that are being considered to better serve the community is to have two sub-committees to the MCC Planning and Building Committee to deal with the myriad of issues that affect the coastside within this topic:

1.     A Screening Committee that would serve as a watchdog on all building permits for the MidCoast and identify possible issues concerning the building permit process. Since there are many rules and regulations on the coastside (zoning, variances, use permits, Coastal Development Permits (CDP), Local Coastal Program (LCP) and more) which need to be looked at and response times are limited, this would be a critical function to identify permits which need further scrutiny.

2.     A Strategic Committee, of more experienced residents who are experienced with county planning and building process, which would work with the Screening Committee to examine projects which may have irregularities and identify specific conflicts with current regulations. This committee would also look at ways to strengthen the building process so that the county, developers and community members would have a well-defined process that is consistent with policies and fairly enforced.

There was also a discussion on meeting logistics. Since community meeting space is at a premium on the coastside and many other agencies meetings are well established, it was decided that we would aim to have regularly scheduled meetings on the First and Third Tuesdays of the month at GSD at 7:30 pm. This can be revisited once the committee gets established and the active members feel a change is needed.

Knowledgeable and/or enthusiastic community members are needed to join this committee and staff the two subcommittees to help provide the MidCoast with a resource to guide them through the planning and building process.