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Archive for August, 2010
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The Planning Dept discusses with AVAC what I should be allowed to plant in my yard
August 3rd, 2010
In this email, Ryan Hostetter of the Planning Dept outlines to the members of the AVAC Land Use Committee what kinds of plants I should be allowed to put in my front yard. She also asks for the member’s comments so that she can incorporate them into conditions of approval for my permit. This is how one person at AVAC (which is supposed to be “advisory only”) can force me to change the shape of my roof or the plants in my yard:
And no, I am not kidding. In the CEQA regulations there are some vague comments about visual impact – and into that opening the Planning Dept says that they can impose conditions of approval on a house that limit the types and numbers of plants and trees that you can put in your yard – as well as the color and shape of your house.
My county supervisor is Adam Hill. Part of Adam’s platform when he first ran for office was that people should plant vegetable gardens, fruit trees, etc. in their yards – but he didn’t realize that the Planning Dept has declared that to be illegal for people in the Coastal Zone – which most of his district is in. I guarantee you that if I told the Planning Dept that I wanted to plant fruit trees that they would deny my permit for that reason alone.
I don’t think Adam is a bad guy – but I believe that he doesn’t know what is going on with his employees at the Planning Dept.
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AVAC Boundaries again
August 3rd, 2010
These are a couple of interesting emails. They show Julia Hartzell of AVAC trying to get a map of the current AVAC boundaries – and she can’t find one. John Kelly from the SLO County GIS Dept (part of the Planning Dept) says he can knock one out for her, and it sounds as if he is getting it from one of their internal maps – but it isn’t available publicly, and certainly the AVAC person in charge of the boundary doesn’t know about the map.
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The Planning Dept asks about getting water from CSA 12 if Cave Landing is moved inside Avila Beach CSD
August 3rd, 2010
Ryan Hostetter from the Planning Dept asked David Church of LAFCo if Cave Landing could continue to get water from CSA 12 if the USL was moved, putting Cave Landing into Avila Beach CSD instead of CSA 12. Ryan is asking this question because Dan O’Grady, one of the Planning Commissioners, asked her this same question and she didn’t know the answer. David’s answer is essentially no. David says that the water typically would come from Avila Beach once the USL was moved, but maybe we could get Avila Beach CSD and CSA 12 to write some sort of special contract (which has never been done before), and then maybe it would be possible. This is a roundabout way to say no. For example, my cousin Greg builds custom houses for people. Greg never says no to requests from his customers. What he does say is this “Well, you could do that, but …”, and then Greg gives the reasons that the request is impossible, impractical, etc. David Church is doing that same trick here that my cousin Greg does.
This becomes important because later Ryan reports back to Dan O’Grady that the answer is a simple yes.
This is LAFCo’s web page. LAFCo is the government agency inside of SLO County that decides the rules and boundaries between cities, the county, special districts, etc, and they are the experts inside the SLO County government about this sort of thing.
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We give AVAC more simulated views
August 4th, 2010
After meeting with the AVAC Land Use Committee, Lenny Grant created some more simulated views of Cave Landing. Dave Watson emailed them to Sherri Danoff of AVAC.
Here are the simulated views that AVAC wanted:
Basically, you really can’t see the Cave Landing house from Avila. You have to zoom in, as if you had binoculars, in order to see anything at all.
Even from the front gate of Cave Landing you really can’t see very much at all of the house in this simulated view (the grey stuff in the very middle of the picture is the roof of the house):
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The Coastal Commission staff backs up the Planning Dept as arranged
August 4th, 2010
After Ryan’s phone call with the Coastal Commission staff, Madeline Cavalieri obligingly sent an email back to Ryan saying exactly what Ryan told her to say.
Madeline Cavalieri email of 08/04/2010
Madeline’s letter says that new development outside a USL must be served by on-site water (like the well at Cave Landing). Madeline also says that Cave Landing is OUTSIDE a USL. My argument is that Cave Landing is INSIDE a USL, since Cave Landing is inside CSA 12, and the boundary of a county service area (CSA) is a USL. Madeline never addresses the issue of the boundary of a CSA. And why didn’t she address that issue? Because Ryan never told her to.
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Bob Martin puts in his opinion about what I should be allowed to plant
August 4th, 2010
I see lots of emails from Bob Martin into AVAC and the Planning Dept from my Public Records Act request complaining about all sorts of trivial things in Avila – stuff like people repairing their decks without a permit, a pile of dirt on a sidewalk, a railing that is solid rather than glass, and here is he complaining about the dirt road on Cave Landing that is used by the repairmen who keep the cell phone towers and the county emergency communication radios working that are on top of the hill. He also complains about the plants at Cave Landing.Hey Bob Martin – get a life!
One of Bob Martin’s complaint emails
Maybe Bob Martin, Anne Brown, and Alec Casanova should start a club! And maybe then they would stop interfering in my private life!
Here is Bob Martin spying on his neighbors!
Here is Bob Martin trying to get another neighbor in trouble!
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AVAC communicates with the Planning Dept about what plants I should be allowed to have
August 4th, 2010
During this time Sherri Danoff is the chairman of the AVAC Land Use Committee (and she may still be). This email is Sherri communicating with Ryan about the types of plants that I should be allowed to put in my yard. So much for American freedom!
Sherri is actually a very nice, well meaning person who has volunteered in a controversial position – which is dictating to people like me what their house and yard will be allowed to look like. I believe that what my house and yard look like is none of her business – which sets up a conflict between us that Sherri would like to gloss over. But I believe that fundamentally these are decisions for Judi and me to make for ourselves - and they are not decisions for Sherri Danoff to make, nor anybody else at AVAC, and certainly not the Planning Dept.
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The Planning Dept misses the deadline for “Application Accepted” letter
August 18th, 2010
The Planning Dept had until Aug 18, 2010 to either give us another “Application Incomplete” letter, or to give us an “Application Accepted” letter. This date of Aug. 18, 2010 is the date because it is over 30 days past the July 17, 2010 date when we turned in the materials requested in the “Application Incomplete” letter.
Because we got nothing at all from the Planning Dept, we can only assume that my MUP permit application was accepted on or before Aug. 18, 2010. On November 12, 2010 the Planning Dept got around to actually sending the “Application Accepted” letter that they should have sent before – but that letter didn’t say what the Planning Dept’s official date of acceptance was.
Here is the relevant quote from the Permit Streamlining Act:
All public agencies must establish one or more lists specifying, in detail, the information required from applicants for a development project (§65940). Upon receipt of a project application containing a statement identifying the application as being for a “development permit,” an agency has 30 calendar days to notify the applicant, in writing, of whether or not the project application is complete enough for processing. When rejected as incomplete, the agency must identify where deficiencies exist and how they can be remedied. The resubmittal of the application begins a new 30-day review period. If the agency fails to notify the applicant of completeness within either of the 30-day periods, the application is deemed to be complete.
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The CEQA Flow Chart and the Planning Dept
August 18th, 2010
What is CEQA and why should I care?
CEQA is the California Environmental Quality Act. Here is a link to their FAQ.
For most homeowners in California all of this CEQA stuff doesn’t matter, because the Planning Dept in their county or city treats Minor Use Permits for housing as exempt from CEQA. In Kern County, for example, no single family home has ever had to go through the CEQA process. Kern County does all the CEQA requirements when the property is zoned for residential and the parcel map is approved. SLO County, which is next door to Kern County, does it very differently. This is one of the many reasons that Kern County can get a MUP application done in less that 4 weeks and SLO County can’t get one done in less than a year.
To satisfy CEQA guidelines, the lead agency (for me this is the SLO Planning Dept) can require an environmental impact report, or issue a “negative declaration”, or a “mitigated negative declaration”, or declare a project as exempt.
The Planning Dept has 30 days to do an initial study to decide which of these options it will do. It makes a big difference which option is chosen, because an EIR takes one year to prepare and is very expensive. A “neg dec” or a “mitigated neg dec” is less expensive and has a time limit of 180 days. Exempt means you don’t have to do anything.
Here is the section of the California Code with these deadlines.
In my case the Planning Dept never formally decided which of these options it would take in it’s initial study. In fact, I do not know if the Planning Dept even did an initial study. Our best guess is that the Planning Dept decided to do a mitigated negative declaration on my MUP application.
Here is the flow chart of how the CEQA process is supposed to happen:
As far as I can tell none of this actually happened on my MUP application.
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AVAC supports my house!
August 19th, 2010
The final vote was 11 to 1 in favor of our project. It is no surprise that Anne Brown voted against it.Here is the letter from AVAC to Ryan.
Note the recommendation about the roof of the house and the barn. I am worried that these recommendations will become requirements by the time my permit is issued (if ever).
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