Eureka, CA. ..As a follow-up to HumCPR’s August public information request letter -(pdf file) for the Humboldt County Planning Department to release a list of land parcels considered to have questionable legal status (shaded parcels); HumCPR is now asking the County to release additional information regarding how the State of California views many of these parcels.

HumCPR is aware of communication, going back at least 7 years, between the California Department of Transportation (Cal-Trans) and County officials over the County’s position of classifying remnant parcels created by State acquisition in the furtherance of road improvements projects, as “shaded parcels.” In a 2011 letter the State asserts that “a continuation of this practice might create certain implications for the State, and can also expose the County to claims by property owners …”

A February 2004 letter from the State expressed opposition to how the County was handling remnant parcels created by State highway acquisitions. The State cited several Code Sections and court decisions exempting the State from local governmental control over State acquisition activities. These exemptions ranged from “impairing the State’s sovereign powers” to a State Supreme Court decision which states that “municipal governments –which are created by the State – cannot have superior power over the State …”

“The classification of parcels as ‘shaded’ at the new interchange at Alton, as well as various improvement spots along Highway 36, are just some examples of what HumCPR feels is bureaucratic overreach by the Planning Department and the County Counsel’s office,” said HumCPR President Lee Ulansey.

Local title company officials have also voiced their concerns for the process that the County has outlined to address the nearly 2000 “shaded parcels” currently in existence. They believe that the process the County has outlined to address this problem may “lead to a false sense of security, which may have drastic results…” They go on to say that, with respect to the innocent purchasers of bonafide illegal parcels, “due to the length of time that the County has ignored its responsibility … many responsible parties can no longer be held accountable …“.

Mr. Ulansey further stated that the most distressing revelation in this ongoing fiasco is found in the February 2011 letter, when the State says, “we were under the impression that this issue had been resolved when we did not receive a response to our 2004 letter.”

Is it proper for County officials to ignore, and fail to respond to, issues affecting the property rights of hundreds of County citizens?

It is our hope that the release of this information will help answer the following questions:
1) Why is Humboldt County the only county in the State taking this position on “shaded parcels” and 2) Why is the Humboldt County Counsel’s Office always uniquely interpreting so many sections of the law in a manner much different than the rest of the State, and almost always detrimental to the interests of Humboldt County property owners?

HumCPR will make the results of this information request available to the public when received.

HumCPR is dedicated to preserving the rural lifestyle that has been the historic tradition of Humboldt County. We will aggressively pursue the right to allow all members of our community a broad choice of alternatives for living, working and recreating. HumCPR will actively monitor and oppose actions that erode property rights or diminish the economic viability of our community.

October public information request letter – links to a pdf file

HumCPR Press Release_CPRA – pdf file for this post

The Humboldt County Community Development Department’s handling of Forster Gill Development – As seen Through the Eyes of the Humboldt Grand Jury – Tina Christensen

In response to numerous complaints, the Humboldt County Grand Jury (Jury) investigated the activities of the Humboldt County Community Development Services Department (CDS) in support of a particular project. While most landowners do not find much support for their projects in the CDS, the Forster/Gill (F/G) project is one that the CDS has promoted with a favorable bias. F/G is a development proposed on 386 acres in the Ridgewood area, just outside the limits of the City of Eureka. F/G proposes to build 1442 residences and over 325,000 square feet of commercial space in 7 phases over the next 10-25 years.

Based on complaints from the public, the Jury interviewed residents, Planning Commissioners and representatives of the City of Eureka, Cal/Trans, Humboldt County Fire District#1, Department of Fish and Game and the Humboldt County Public Works Department as well as the CDS.

The Planning Commissioners stated that they were deprived of information needed to properly consider the merits and impacts of the development in a variety of ways. They testified that they were not given proper notice of meetings, were quite often not given a meeting agenda or staff report until minutes before some meetings, making it impossible to be prepared for the meeting. More than once, their requests to CDS Staff for information was met with the response “You don’t need this as it is not relevant.” The Jury cited Government Code section 54950: “The people, in delegating authority, do not give their public servants the right to decide what is good for the people to know and what is not good to know”

After the applicant contested a negative Planning Commission decision on the project, the Commissioners sought an opportunity to present their rejection reasons to the Board of Supervisors during the appeal hearing. Their request was denied by the CDS Staff, with the acquiescence of the Board, because “This is the way it’s always been done”-only the applicant, the Director and the staff of the Department are allowed to speak to or answer questions from the Supervisors.

Projects requiring California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) review are required to comply strictly with all of its guidelines, but in the case of F/G, the CDS decided that the rules did not necessarily apply to them. The developer and the CDS indicated to the public that the project was on hold due to economic restraints, while at the same time the CDS staff proceeded with the preparation of the Draft Environmental Impact Report
(DEIR). The DEIR was completed without involving many affected parties or agencies such as the City of Eureka, Cal/Trans, and Humboldt County, Fire District #1, the Department of Fish and Game and the Humboldt County Public Works Department.

The DEIR utilized outdated growth calculations developed in 1995 to determine the assessment value of each parcel for proportioning out the cost of the utilities infrastructure. These erroneous costs quite probably would have been discovered by one of the agencies not consulted in the DEIR process. Utilizing these outdated numbers would have resulted in having the taxpayers pay for development costs that should be the responsibility of the project. The DEIR led one to believe that the agencies listed above agreed with the DEIR, even though the CDS excluded their required participation.

The CDS did not form a Citizen’s Advisory Group, as provided for in CEQA, to address the concerns of the Community related to issues such as access, infrastructure, the Martin Slough ecosystem, endangered species, plants and animals, and a potential negative economic impact on the City of Eureka. All of these issues should have been meaningfully discussed and addressed in the DEIR.

An adjoining homeowner with threatened with the possible use of the Eminent Domain process to acquire a portion of the adjoining owners property for ingress and egress to the F/G project.

One important aspect of this abuse of power, which is not dealt with in the Jury’s report, is the involvement of the Humboldt County Counsel’s Office. Attorneys with that office work closely with the CDS in all that they do. County Counsel’s participation in the F/G project is unquestionable. They advised the CDS in all aspects of the project, including the preparation and appropriateness of the DEIR. They are required to advise each County department in the lawful performance of its duties, and to prevent this type of abuse. It seems in this case, they did the opposite.

The Jury charges the CDS with numerous violations of the Humboldt County General Plan, the Brown Act, CEQA, the Government Code, and the Public Resources Code.

Landowners who submit projects to the CDS for approval customarily encounter a process that is not friendly or lenient to their rights. The CDS has a record of putting roadblocks in the path of most development projects. These roadblocks consist of imposing a variety of expensive and time-consuming development standards, many of which are not required by State law or County codes and regulations. Changing requirements throughout the process and thus increasing the time and cost of the project is an oft-used method of frustrating the legitimate rights of many landowners.

If the Board of Supervisors do not hold the CDS Director and Staff involved in the irregularities evident in the F/G project, as well as the County Counsel Attorney, then they will only be emboldened to continue these practices upon additional landowners and citizens of Humboldt County. It is time for the Supervisors to do their job, and for these “public servants” to find out that the law applies to everyone. Demand this of your Supervisor today. Make them accountable and responsible for their oath of office and tell them to fix the abusive situation that has developed at the Humboldt County Community Development Services Department.

A full copy of the Grand Jury Report is here: Grand Jury:Ridgewood

Lee Ulansey/For The Times-Standard

On April 12, the Board of Supervisors directed that the county Community Development Services Department (CDSD) respond to letters of concern received from city councils, service districts and chambers of commerce and begin outreach efforts regarding the update of the county General Plan and Housing Element.

Per board orders, CDSD staff was directed to include: discussion on use of second units as a source of affordable housing, discussion on use of flexible zoning for commercial/multi-family purposes, and discussion on efforts to seek voluntary multi-family zoning.

The board order also directed staff to bring back a work plan for further review of implementing formation of Citizens Advisory Committees (CACs) in the McKinleyville and Cutten areas, respectively. The CACs would review and make recommendations on any proposed General Plan update changes in those two areas.

Consideration of formation of CACs is included in the existing General Plan (Section 1500). Until recently, the board and Planning Commission were ignoring this provision. Now, we have a specific board order for a work plan to address it. To date, CDSD Director Kirk Girard has not produced such a plan.

This may be because Mr. Girard, as he wrote in his staff report for the April 12 meeting, does not support CACs since they would “cost a significant amount of time and money.” It certainly is commendable that Mr. Girard is budget conscious, however, his opposition not only ignores what is expressed in the letters from the cities of Eureka, Fortuna, and Rio Dell; the Humboldt, McKinleyville and Garberville community services districts and several chambers of commerce, but also ignores a convincing public desire for a stronger voice in the General Plan and Housing Element updates. It is also worthwhile to note that Supervisor Clendenen also refused to support this modest effort at public participation despite written requests by both of the incorporated cities in the district he represents ,along with the Garberville Community Services District and chamber. In doing so he effectively ignored the majority of elected officials in the 2nd District.

Another proposal the supervisors could have considered in April was formation of a Planning Advisory Committee (PAC) to advise on the housing element update multi-family rezoning program, a contentious issue. Creation of a PAC is also provided for under Section 1500.

However, it does not appear to be gaining any traction with the Board of Supervisors. Mr. Girard does not support it either, stating in his April 12 report that “staff does not recommend this because it would likely prolong the length of time the Housing Element would remain uncertified.”

Yes, currently we have a county Housing Element, under Mr. Girard’s guidance, which has been decertified by the state due, in part, to its not providing enough zoning for low income, multi-family housing. Decertification (a qualified rejection by the state Housing and Community Development Department) means, among other things, that the county will have much less success in winning state grant funds for low-income housing projects.

As far as responding to service districts, it is true that Mr. Girard, with Supervisor Ryan Sundberg in attendance, met with the McKinleyville Community Services District on April 20 and Mr. Girard gave a presentation to the April 26 meeting of the Garberville Sanitary District.

Maybe there have been meetings with other service districts, cities and/or chambers of commerce, but, if so, the general public was not aware of them. Service districts, city councils and chambers represent the public and memberships, respectively. The letters that were sent to the county were in response to public and membership concern, so it does not seem unreasonable that these are places where additional General Plan and Housing Element discussion can take place. Debate is difficult, however, absent participants. This absence, however, is not the fault of the service districts, etc. The McKinleyville and Garberville meetings mentioned above were, of course, posted on their respective agendas. But why didn’t CDSD publicize its presentations? It almost seems like CDSD is trying to avoid any measurable amount of public observation and participation.

As has been noted previously by many citizens, lack of communication and transparency has eroded the public’s belief in the update process concerning the county General Plan and Housing Element and associated multi-family rezoning issue. In order to mitigate this erosion the CDSD should, independently, send out its own public notices whenever CDSD staff will be making presentations to outside entities regarding the updates. This would help allay public perception regarding a lack of transparency, particularly concerning this new outreach effort.

Lee Ulansey is founder and chair of HumCPR

Responding to requests from numerous public elected officials and others, the Humboldt County Board of Supervisors will hold a meeting on Tuesday at 1:30 PM to hear our concerns and consider bringing the GPU process into line with Section 1500 of the Existing Plan.

The Times Standard published a report on the issue in their Sunday Edition .

You can also read more about it on the News Section of this site.

Please attend the meeting if you can: Tuesday April 12th, 1:30 PM. Board of Supervisors Chambers 825 5th St Eureka

As reported elsewhere on this website, on March 1st the City of Eureka voted to send a letter to the Board of Supervisors asking them to oversee and correct the General Plan Update (GPU) process tat is currently underway.

Since then the city has been joined by numerous public bodies listed below. To read the letters just click on the names;

City of Fortuna

City of Rio dell

McKinleyville Community Services District

Numerous individuals are now signing on as well and other community groups are in the process of approving letters.

We hope that the Board of Supervisors will give this outpouring of concern serious consideration and act to open up the process as called for in the existing General Plan.