HISTORY OF LAND USE WARS IN
MENDOCINO COUNTY
The following history is necessary to understand the context of
de Vall's recent proposal on behalf of Mendocino Medical Marijuana Advisory
Board for cultivation zoning in the General Plan as well as the County's
recent initiative to collect nuisance fines throught the property tax default
process.
It also forms the context for the Measure B campaign,
which we denounced as a reignition of the "culture-war" of the 1960-1980's.
rjphoto NORMAN L. de VALL
by Norman de Vall
Mendocino County adopted its first building codes in 1963
and began to issue Red Tags. I remember it well. Mine was one
of the first. But it wasn't a big deal. I went to the office,
got a permit and finished building my porch. As the years went by,
more and more owner builders settled in Mendocino County which now required
grade stamped lumber, detailed permit applications and at the same time,
prohibited communal living.
Then President Nixon urged people to "go to the country
if you can. The urban infrastructure has reached full capacity"; the
back to the landers came and bought up what I call "kitchen table top subdivisions".
Throughout the 1960's and most of the 1970's, property owners could simply
redraw their Assessor's Parcel Map and divide up their property as they wished.
The County did not have either a Minor or Major meaningful sub-division process.
By the early 1970's, the county was mired in both a deluge of owner-builders
providing for their families and so many illegal subdivisions that in 1973
the then Board of Supervisors declared an amnesty program and made all "kitchen
table top" subdivisions "legal". However, there wasn't any resolve
to the Building Code War and it continued for another 10 years.
Conservatives were less than pleased and urged the Board
to require code compliance and get rid of the communes. In the early
1970's, the Board established the BLUR Committee chaired by 4th District
Supervisor Augie Avilia. (BLUR....Building Land Use Reform Committee).
After many meetings, there was still no resolve and by the mid-'70's the
Housing Element of the then General Plan was woefully deficient in recognized
housing for the known population.
Bruce Levene ran for 5th District Supervisor in '74 campaigning
on the issue. Bruce began campaigning by going wherever large numbers
of people gathered, often in fields or pastures where the dancing was lively
and the music well received. Bruce's campaign drew owner-builders and "communarders"
together. Reacting, the Board of Supervisors passed what came to be
known as the "boogie ordinance" in an effort to prohibit large gatherings
of the citizenry. Bruce lost. I was elected in 1978 using
the same agenda.
Roland Fellman became the Chief Building Inspector and
attempted to get weapon permits from the Sheriff for his building inspectors.
He was rejected by then Sheriff Tom Jondahl.
Fellman turned to the Director of the Social Services
Department wanting a list of all parents signed on to Aid for Dependent Families
programs, (AFDC) especially those in Albion. He was again refused but
did install see-through mirrors in the Building Department Office in Ukiah.
When Fellman finally left the County employ, he destroyed
all the building code files in the Fort Bragg Office through 1973.
(The county, reportedly, likes to say those files were destroyed in the arson
fires of the mid 1980's).\
Mendocino County Property Owners Association, (McPOA),
Mendocino County Assoc, (MCA), and others put pressure on the Board and by
1980 the Land Use Law Enforcement Unit (LuLu) was firmly embedded in the
County Councils Office (CoCo).\
The now sanctioned illegal subdivisions combined with
the County's out of compliance General Plan eventually brought about the
General Plan lawsuit of 1978. The plaintiff was Warner Chabot who filed
the suit without an attorney. John Drummond, then County Counsel, presented
the County's "General Plan" to the Court in several disorganized cardboard
boxes. Warner won the suit and was awarded "attorney fees" for his efforts.
Judge Golden's ruling required that the County adopt a new General Plan.
The task would take almost four years. In the meantime
the Court would hear "Hardship Cases" but no other Use Permits, Variances
or Subdivisions, major or minor, would be allowed.
Eventually, the new Generaal Plan would have amended
to it the Local Coastal Program (LCP) and the Mendocino Town Plan (still
under construction).
In my first term, the Board adopted Clean Slate - conceptualized
by Michael Noland, Paul Katzeff, Michael Nissenberg and many others.
It was an amnesty program which would allow owner builders to have the "benefit
of permit" for their homes. Clean Slate was open for two years and
many homes were brought into reasonable compliance through the program.
At the time, Anon Forest, founder of United Stand, authored
and eventually got Class K passed into State law. Class K was and is
a reasonable building code which allows much of the construction method and
materials to be decided by the builder/owner.
In the early 1980's, the City of Santa Barbara sued Mary
Adamson who had a number of people living in her home in a residential neighborhood.
The City claimed that she had violated the "Rule of Five",
an ordinance adopted by 23 counties and cities in the state which prohibited
no more than five different sur-named persons from living on the same parcel.
Ms. Adamson argued that they lived as a family regardless of their last names.
The case eventually went to the State Supreme Court.
Chief Justice Rose Bird wrote the narrow (4-3) majority opinion defining
"family... those who eat dinner together are a family". And with that
decision the Rule of Five fell and communes became legal in Mendocino County
with the addition of the Intent Section in the new General Plan. •
Norman L. de Vall was Fifth District Supervisor
from 1979-1995.
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