I watched property rights sausage being made this afternoon

Russ Steele

Following a power lunch with fellow conservative bloggers, I motored up to the Rood Center to watch the Board of Supervisors deal with item 21.

SCHEDULED ITEM: 1:30 P.M. Jory Stewart, Planning Director
21.    Public hearing continued from Tuesday, January 11, 2011 to consider the appeal filed by Crawford and Josie Bost regarding the Zoning Administrator’s denial of Parcel Map (PM09- 009) and Petition for Exceptions (MI10-004) on property located at 19100 B-4 Ranch Road, Nevada City (Assessor’s Parcel Number: 62-150-32). (Dist. I)
ADJO

Right up front Crawford and Josie agreed with most of the recommendations of the Planning Staff to remove the gate on the emergency access road at the border of their property, to improve a segment of the emergency access road and to get legal commitments from the home owners on Deerhaven Lane. Deerhaven Lane is part of the secondary emergency access road.  The only issue was that one property owner was insisting on a gate as the emergency access road crossed over his property. His property had been vandalized several times and GPS maps shows the road went through his property, and it brings unwelcome visitors to his home.        

The county staff did not want a locked the gate on the road, based on an ordnance that was passed in May of 2010. This was after the Bost’s had requested their lot split in 2009, and a exception in Jan 2010.  In other words,  as the lot split was making it’s through an expensive and time consuming process,  the County planners kept raising the bar the Bost family had to jump over.  It was clear the no-locked gate regulation stated that it only applies to locked gates on emergency access roads after May of 2010.

Why were we even here,  kept rattling through my brain.  The lot split was applied for in 2009, long before the new gate regulation.  As Supervisor Owens, said it was unfair to apply regulations retroactively, and Supervisor Weston seemed to agree. I had to leave before Supervisor Scofield spoke. Later this evening I learned here that the BOS voted 3-2 to allow the locked gate.  It seem to me the Staff was stretching their authority, and three of the Supervisors were injected some common sense into the process.  

The most interesting part of the meeting was the parade of those apposed to the lot split. The usual lefties, some aging hippies, some neighbors, made their way to the microphone to object to the lot split.  The aging hippies wanted to go back and review the zoning established during the last upgrade to the General Plan in the 1990. Reading between the lines,  this was what I heard from this group.  “ Hey, we did not get our way during the General Plan Update, so why should the Bost family have an opportunity to take advantage of our failure to keep the zoning at 40 acres.” 

One final thought. The rational given by Supervisors Lamphier and Beason for their no votes seemed to be more contrived to satisfy their political constituency than a rational assessment of the facts. It was clear, the regulation the planning commission was using to block this lot split did not apply in this case, and even a mediocre lawyer could made a good case in court. Congratulations to Supervisor’s Weston, Owens and Scofield for using some common sense in deciding this issue.