Point Reyes Light - February 7, 2002

Supes order Mesa Refuge to remove writers’ sheds

Daniel Freed

Meeting before a packed chamber, county supervisors Tuesday night ordered that three sheds at the Mesa Refuge writers’ retreat in Point Reyes Station be removed from the mesa bluff upon which they were illegally built in 1998.

The supervisors’ 3-1 vote to have all of the sheds removed from the site supersedes an October decision by county planning commissioners to allow two of the three sheds to remain on the bluff. Supervisors took up the matter after a group of West Marin environmentalists – led by the Environmental Action Committee of West Marin – appealed the planning commissioners’ decision because of concerns the illegal sheds might negatively impact the site along Tomales Bay.

Noting that one goal of the Point Reyes Station community plan is "to preserve the integrity of the bluff area," Supervisor Steve Kinsey at the meeting said, "I believe the Planning Commission approval is not sufficient because it doesn’t match this aspiration of the community plan."

Some members of the crowd said that the commissioners’ decision had another meaning – that builders should always follow the standard permitting process.

"Barnes is just some guy who thinks he’s so holy he doesn’t have to play by the rules," said Lew Butler of Stinson Beach. "They sensed that and sent a little message."

‘Be a mean guy’

Point Reyes Station Village Association president Mike McClaskey encouraged supervisors not to be swayed by the positive work done at Mesa Refuge. "Be a mean guy and make him take them down," he told supervisors. "If you want to say it’s okay for him, you have to for everyone else."

Mesa Refuge allows writers working for social justice and environmental change free stays for up to four weeks in a residence that Barnes and his wife Leyna Bernstein purchased in 1997. Barnes – a director of Greenpeace International – paid for the project with profits he gained from starting a credit card company. The project was developed by San Francisco’s Tides Foundation.

County government red-tagged the Mesa Refuge project in April 1998 while it was still being developed at 9 and 11 Los Reyes Drive. Barnes has argued that he built the sheds to comply with building regulations allowing structures under 120 square feet to be erected without permits.

Impact on future parklands

Much of the public comment at the appeal hearing centered around the aesthetic impacts of the site, which overlooks the southern end of Tomales Bay. Some audience members objected that the sheds will negatively impact the Giacomini wetlands below the bluff, which the National Park Service purchased in February 2000 for $5.75 million and will eventually be added to Point Reyes National Seashore.

After introducing himself as "the guy who started this whole mess," Barnes described the sheds on the mesa bluff as a place where writers can "connect with the outer world of nature and the inner world of the imagination." Barnes’s comments were supported by numerous writers who said that the sheds provided valuable inspiration for their work with a modicum of disturbance to local wildlife.

Current Mesa Refuge resident and grassroots environmental organizer Andy Robinson said that he had tremendous respect both for Barnes and the West Marin environmental groups opposing the sheds. He then handed an application for Environmental Action Committee membership to Catherine Caufield, the group’s executive director and the lead appellant in the case.

"One thing I tell [the grassroots organizations I help organize] is ‘Pick your fights,’" Robinson added, noting that the planning commission’s October decision should be viewed as an acceptable compromise.

Rebuttal from Poet Laureate

But the comments by Robinson and other Mesa Refuge writers were rebutted in a letter by former US Poet Laureate, environmental activist, and Inverness resident Robert Hass that was read to supervisors by Point Reyes Station’s Lauri Sturdivant.

"There is, I am afraid, something fundamentally silly about saying that encroaching on the habitat where wild creatures mate and nest and raise their young is really just fine because that encroachment allowed the writers the solitude to write about protecting nature," wrote Haas. "Protecting nature begins with protecting nature."

EAC president Jules Evens, who since last July has been conducting a Park Service survey of the wetlands adjacent to Mesa Refuge, told supervisors that – contrary to the comments of Barnes and his supporters – the area contains an abundance of wildlife affected by the sheds.

"Some people who want the sheds to stay in place dismiss this biodiversity," he said. "But you really need to be there a lot longer than a week to see it."

Park superintendent speaks out

Also weighing in on the side of local environmentalists was Point Reyes National Seashore Supt. Don Neubacher, who said that the park is working with residents of the mesa to get easements which could further protect the bluff area from being developed.

"[Mesa Refuge] is a great idea, but maybe it’s in the wrong place," he said. "We have 90,000 acres and maybe we can look at building a writer’s retreat in the park."

Tides Foundation attorney Daniel Tate argued that the Point Reyes Station Community Plan as it existed in 1998 would have allowed Barnes to build the sheds. Barnes’ attorney, former supervisor Gary Giacomini, then argued that supervisors should consider the words of German playwright Johann von Goethe. "The highest function of government is to provide a place in which art can thrive," Giacomini quoted Goethe.

Giacomini recalls Christo vote

Giacomini said that supervisors in 1976 faced a similar dilemma when they were asked to allow Bulgarian artist Christo Javacheff to erect a 24-mile cloth fence from southern Sonoma County to the West Marin coastline at Dillon Beach. The panel sided with the artist, he noted.

But Caufield, in her closing remarks, said, "Christo’s fence was taken down in a few weeks."

Supervisor Kinsey pushed for the removal of the sheds, amd board President Cynthia Murray provided the only dissenting vote. Supervisor Annette Rose was absent.

Caufield on Wednesday applauded the decision. "What’s really important was that it was such a showing of community spirit," she said. "[Supervisors] heard and respected the community’s vision for itself and they sent the message of respect for the planning process."

Barnes will have until April 15 to submit plans for relocating the sheds to county officials.

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