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

On Dec 2nd, the Humboldt County Planning Commission opened a hearing on Amendments to the Humboldt County Zoning Regulations, Subdivision Regulations, General Plans and Local Coastal Plans. The new proposed changes are tied to implementation of the 2010 Housing Element. The hearing was well attended, especially by residents of the McKinleyville area which would see huge changes to its’ character and make-up if the proposed changes were to go through.

After a large amount of public testimony, most of which aired concerns about the impact on the community of McKinleyville the hearing was continued to January 6th 2011

The proposed changes are concentrated in several communities throughout Humboldt and are part of the move toward high density housing in “urbanized” areas and away from more rural settings.

If the proposed changes are adopted, new housing will be encouraged in several “Housing Opportunity Zones” by easing up on regulations and offering incentives to development in those areas.

Special zones will also be set aside for establishing Emergency Shelters on a principally permitted basis, which means they will not be subject to taking input from the community.

A third aspect of the new ordinances would re-zone parcels within those areas to a very high density to accommodate “Multi-Family Housing”.

The County has provided maps of the “Housing Opportunity Zones” and the Emergency Shelter zones. Maps of the parcels to be re-zoned to “Multi-family” housing will also be available soon

We will bring you more details and updates as they become available. In the meantime, if you have input about these changes, please try to attend the January 6th hearing of the Planning Commission (6:00 PM at the County Courthouse).

On the following maps, the Orange outline = “Housing Opportunity Zones” and the Green outline = Emergency Shelters principally permitted.

If you would like to examine the maps more closely you can access a full size (5.2 mb) .pdf file by clicking here County Housing Element Maps

McKinleyville

Cutten and Pine Hill

Humboldt Hill

Weott

Redway / Garberville

A much-anticipated Planning Commission hearing on the Forster-Gill Ridgewood Village application for a General Plan Amendment and Re-zone has been CANCELLED just days before the November 18th scheduled meeting.

According to the County “The meeting on Thursday was cancelled because the traffic mitigation report was not complete and the applicant’s consultant was not available.”

At the last meeting on this issue commissioners stated that they would be taking public comment on November 18th. We’ll keep you posted on when the issue comes up again.

This Thursday, July 8th, the Planning Commission will continue its’ discussion of Land Use Classifications. According to staff “The Commission intends to conclude the ongoing discussion of the draft Land Use Element, in particular, Section 4.8 Land Use Classifications (which include the text of the plan, not the proposed mapping changes) and begin review of the remainder of Part 2, which includes Chapter 5, Community Infrastructure and Services Element, Chapter 6, Telecommunications, Chapter 7, Circulation Element and Chapter 9, Economic Development Element.”

It’s important to note that the remaining classifications to be discussed on Thursday include such key designations as Open Space (OS), Agricultural Exclusive (AE), Agriculture General (AG), Agriculture Ranchland (AGR), Timber (T) and Industrial Timber (TI).

Although the Commission seems to have moved away from the Alternative “A” – proposed “TI” designation, it is still in the charts and we must ensure that it is dropped in this chapter. “TI” calls for a density of one home per 600 acres.

Similarly, the proposed “AGR” classification remains in this chapter. It calls for a minimum density of 160 acres under Alternative “B” and again, one home per 600 acres under Alternative “A”.

If the Commission concludes its’ discussion of Chapter 4.8, it will then move to Chapter 5 (Community Infrastructure and Service). This section will deal with such issues as the Adequacy of Infrastructure to meet discretionary development needs and the fiscal impact of those developments. It will also address On-site Sewage disposal and Expanded Fire Protection Services.

Daniel Mintz, The Independent 4/20/2010

Homebuilding on Timber Production Zone (TPZ) parcels is one of the most argued-about aspects of the General Plan Update (GPU) and a majority of the county’s Planning Commission supports allowing one residence per parcel as an unconditional right.

The Commission reviewed the policies of the draft GPU’s Forest Resources chapter and debated whether allowing a residence on a TPZ parcel should be based on a connection to logging operations. Four of the five commissioners at the meeting said they think a single TPZ residence should be allowed through a ministerial permit – one that doesn’t require conditions – and that second units should be similarly allowed on parcels bigger than 160 acres.

That will disappoint those who view small-scale residential development of timberlands as a slippery slope toward conversion. But those who support it say that it maintains property rights and land value.

The issue was discussed extensively during the meeting’s public comment session, where various people suggested that a public uproar and litigation will happen if residential development is restricted.

Kevin Dreyer, the president of the Humboldt Association of Realtors (HAR), said that a house is defined in state law as being a “compatible use” with timberlands. He warned that requiring it to be conditionally permitted would devalue land and spark protests similar to the ones that ensued when the Board of Supervisors placed a temporary moratorium on TPZ development.

“You’re taking away the livelihood of members of your constituency,” Dreyer continued. “Taking away that right … is going to hugely affect a lot of people.”

The debate boiled down to the use of a small word in state law. State statute says that compatible uses in TPZ include “a residence or other structure necessary for the management of land zoned as timberland production.” Eureka Attorney Bill Barnum told commissioners that the use of the word “or” is disjunctive and the timber management requirement refers to the “other structure,” not the residence.

Barnum said that if a staff recommendation to require residences to be related to timber management is adopted, it will contradict state law and the county will be sued.

Julie Williams of the Northern California Association of Home Builders gave a similar warning. “No matter what staff is telling you, you’re taking people’s property rights and that’s going to cause litigation and a lot of problems for the county – and we can’t afford it,” she said.

The current county ordinance allows one residence per every 40 acre TPZ parcel, which has been described as a motivator for splitting up larger parcels. And Jennifer Kalt of the Healthy Humboldt Coalition said 35,000 acres of TPZ land has been “broken down into smaller parcels” in the last 12 years. Proposals from Barnum Timber and Southern Humboldt’s Hilltop Ranch would add 12,000 acres and 50,000 acres respectively to that, she continued.

Commissioner Ralph Faust, a former attorney for the state’s Coastal Commission, referenced Barnum’s interpretation of state law and disagreed with it. He said the rest of the state law talks about preventing timberland conversion to urban uses and discouraging the expansion of urban services into timberland. “How can a legislature that says that is the purpose of its law then go on to say that any parcel zoned TPZ gets a residence? How does that limit urban expansion into timberlands? It does precisely the opposite,” he said.

Faust added that allowing the homebuilding “makes perfect sense if you want to maximize the residential economic value of your parcels – but that’s not what the legislature had in mind.”
Commission Chairman Jeffrey C. Smith disagreed. “When you look at these parcel sizes that we’re talking about in TPZ, they’re very large,” he said. “And I don’t think allowing one house on a TPZ parcel is converting it to an urban use.”

Commissioner Dennis Mayo said he agrees with Barnum’s read of the law. “I can tell you that my sixth grade teacher, Mrs. Orrin, would roll over in her grave if I didn’t know that the ‘disjunctive or’ always goes to the right, not the left, in a sentence – that’s pretty clear,” he continued.

Mayo added that if residential development is conditioned on timber management, “We’re not only going to throw the baby out with the bathwater, we’re going to destroy our economy and any hope of keeping a timber base here.”

Faust was the only commissioner who disagreed with allowing one house per TPZ parcel as an unconditional right. Commissioner Mel Kreb was absent. The hearing was continued to the commission’s April 22 meeting.