"It looks like a fairy-tale house,"
a local contractor said, leaning out the window of his pickup truck
for a better look at the building that will soon house the Salmon
Protection and Watershed Network (SPAWN).
The new building’s setting, if not quite
up to fairy-tale standards, certainly has its allure. The two-acre
plot, just north of the green bridge in Lagunitas, is dense with redwoods,
some of them hundreds of years old. Lagunitas Creek rushes along the
bottom fringe of the property.
The building itself will be SPAWN’s new
office, Steiner said. The group, which seeks to preserve coho and
steelhead salmon habitat in the San Geronimo Valley, is currently
housed in a building in executive director Todd Steiner’s backyard
in Forest Knolls.
The Turtle Island Restoration Network, a sea-turtle
advocacy that organization shares several of its staff members with
SPAWN, will also move into the building.
Outdoor education
The two-acre property also has a sizable garage
building, which Steiner said he hopes to convert into an education
center for SPAWN’s interns and volunteers. The property as a
whole, he said, will serve as an "outdoor education center";
SPAWN plans to reintroduce species of native plants, such as redwood
sorrel, creating a pristine creekside ecosystem.
"Our goal is to have the lightest footprint
we can on the property," Steiner said. "We don’t have
any big development plans, we don’t plan on having large numbers
of people here at any given time."
Several features of the property will be meant
to highlight ways of "living in harmony with the creek,"
Steiner said. A water-catchment system on the building’s roof
will reduce SPAWN’s water usage. A permeable driveway will allow
water to soak into the ground, reducing runoff and resultant erosion
around the creek.
‘Fish-friendly lives’
"What we’re proposing to do is to create
a model for living fish-friendly lives," Steiner said. He was
quick to add that such ideas have not been finalized; SPAWN is still
consulting with architects on the building’s overhaul. "Nothing
has been approved or in writing," he said.
Perhaps most important, Steiner said, is the
section of creek adjacent to the property, which will now be protected
under SPAWN’s stewardship for the foreseeable future. Those waters
house a spot where coho spawn, he said, easily observable from the
creek’s banks.
SPAWN bought the property for $675,000 from an
East Bay man, who also owns an additional 23 acres running up to the
ridge of the San Geronimo Valley, Steiner said, adding that the group
hopes to eventually purchase the rest of the man’s land.
"That would give us a slice of the Valley
all the way from the Valley floor to the ridgeline," he said.
Steiner said "there’s a lot of unknowns"
surrounding the property right now, such as county permits and the
details of renovating the main house, which has been empty for 10
years. Nevertheless, he said, he hopes to have SPAWN moved in next
year.
"If we’re in there in six months, I’d
be a happy man," he said.