“Do you have a job, or are you some kind of
environmentalist?” – popular bumper sticker in Mendocino County
.
Mendocino County is considering a
legally mandated and long overdue Update of its General Plan (GPU)
which is intended as basic permit for all development and planning
except in the incorporated cities of Ukiah, Willits and Fort Bragg
until 2028.
Such plans are subject to the California
Environmental Quality Act and thus must have an Environmental Impact
Report. The Plan EIR is a program EIR which allows expedited or
limited review of individual projects subject to it.
The Draft General Plan "Update" and the accompanying
DEIR was published in August of 2008 and the public comment period has
expired. These comments will be circulated, responded to and added or
not to the Final General Plan for 2008-28 which will also have an EIR.
On February 5, the Planning Team -- an "elite"
division of the Planning Department -- will present the Draft GP Update
and EIR to a workshop of the planning commission and the two new
supervisors McCowen and Brown. No action will be taken. The Final DGPU
will be published the end of February, and will be presented for review
in a joint planning commission/BOS meeting on March 5.
After that will come a 30 day public comment period.
Simultaneiously, the planning commission will
develop a recommendation to the board in meetings on the 12th and 19th
of March.
Subsequently, there will be a BOS hearing on those
documents around the 24 of March or the 7th of April at which
supervisors likely will certify the EIR and approve the Plan..
Certification of the final EIR initiates a one year
period during which the County can be sued to vacate the Plan, but any
such action must be preceded by a Notice 60 days in advance. And the
suit can only claim causes that were raised at or before the public
hearing, including the comments on the Draft..
The Draft Ukiah Valley Area Plan will come under
consideration after the General Plan process is complete. According to
deputy executive Allison Glassey the DUVAP and its EIR will be before
the board for a public hearing by the end of April.
The present GP was written in 1981 after a
lawsuit successfully challenged the 1970's collection of County
planning polices as inadequate. It reflects the frontier assumptions of
40 years ago when nature was something to dominate and convert to
economic uses with little or no concern for consequences.
The Update, like the Plan, was written by PMC
consultants from the Sacramento Valley with no real understanding of
our special circumstances.
The previous BOS had no interest in the content of
the Plan, but used the occasion of the Update to fast track some 30
private developments which otherwise would have taken years to work
their way through the bureaucratic maze.
Whether or not it is practical from an economic
standpoint, environmentalists should insist the present document be
scrapped and a new process initiated using Citizen Advisory Commissions
to write a new Plan more suited to our vision.
If you'd like to join with me in a Voters Union
collaborative process to monitor these important planning documents,
please let me know. If you have commented, and you send me those
comments, they will be posted at www.mendocinocountry.com
If you appreciate this service, please
send $20 to MENDOCINO COUNTRY, P.O. Box 533, Talmage, CA 95481 for a
one year subscription to the Independent newspaper.
--- Richard Johnson