Officials from the California Coastal Commission last
week announced that Lawson’s Landing, the popular campground and
RV park at the mouth of Tomales Bay, is violating state law by operating
without necessary permits.
With 1,000 campsites and more than 200 houses or
trailers, the 850-acre site is the largest privately owned RV park in
California. It was bought by the Lawson family in the 1920s, and predates
many county and state building codes.
The Landing’s owners have sought approval of
their operation from county planners since the 1970s. This process has
been complicated by the demands of environmental groups – most
notably the Environmental Action Committee of West Marin and the Sierra
Club – who say that the campground threatens surrounding sand dunes
and wetlands. In the past decade alone, the Lawson family has spent
close to $700,000 on environmental studies required by the county.
A draft of the most recent study was completed this
summer but rejected by environmental activists, who said that it overestimated
the number of people who use the campground. A new study was needed,
they said, to ensure that the dunes and wetlands would be protected.
But planning commissioners accepted the draft, acknowledging that it
needed to be heavily revised.
With its affordable rates and unpretentious atmosphere,
the Landing is something of an anomaly on the Marin County coast. Its
historically middle-class customers – many of whose families have
been visiting the RV park over several generations – worry that
stringent environmental measures could drive up camping rates or scale
back the territory occupied by the trailers and small houses they consider
second homes. Rates were already raised this year to help fund the recent
environmental study.
Commission steps in
The Coastal Commission’s announcement last week
was a surprise to the Lawson family, who said they had expected to apply
for coastal permits only after obtaining a clean bill of health from
county planners. In August, Chris Kern, manager for the Commission’s
North Central Coast District, said, "it makes sense for [the Lawson
family] to go through the local process first."
But last week, expecting public comment on Lawson’s
Landing at the Commissioners’ Thursday meeting in San Francisco,
Commission staff members decided to intervene, hoping to speed up the
approval process.
"The concern that we have is the amount of time
that’s passed without final resolution of these issues," Kern
said this week. "We do need to act more expeditiously to resolve
the more outstanding violations."
Kern would not explain what problems his staff had
found at Lawson’s Landing, but said the violations would be explained
in a letter to the Lawson family that will probably be mailed this week.
He referred to problems with the Landing’s septic system and the
campground’s impact on coastal wetlands, without going into details.
The Lawson family will have to apply for a permit from the Coastal Commission,
Kern said.
Owners caught off guard
Lawson’s Landing was issued a permit to operate
a trailer park by the state Department of Housing and Community Development
in 1992, but "state housing can’t issue coastal permits,"
Kern said. "It’s a separate authorization entirely."
It remains unclear whether a state coastal permit
will have to be obtained before, after, or during the county approval
process. Nancy Vogler, one of the campground’s owners, said this
week she had assumed that county and state permits were bundled together
in one application process. She was waiting to learn exactly what her
family had done wrong, she said.
"I don’t know what to think, I don’t
know what to plan, we’re kind of in limbo," Vogler said. "This
whole thing took us by surprise."
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