Farm House wins right to pave

Olema Farm House wins right to pave parking lot

By David Rolland
Olema Farm House owner Mike Nelson this week won his battle to pave a parking lot over his septic system and increase operations at both the Farm House and the Olema Liquor and Deli next door.

Despite protest by some West Marin residents, county supervisors permitted Nelson to resume paving the parking lot, increase indoor and outdoor seating by 60 percent (from 122 seats to 195), extend liquor sales during wintertime hours, and keep two neon signs up at the liquor store.

Nelson's requests to play low-volume music on the outdoor patio was denied, however, as was a request extend liquor and delicatessen sales on New Year's Eve from 10 p.m. to 2 a.m., a proposal Nelson had previously withdrawn.

Environmentalists upset Environmentalists this week responded with chagrin, accusing the supervisors and planning staff of endangering Olema Creek and its Coho salmon run.

"We're very disappointed," said John Grissim, executive director of Environmental Action Committee of West Marin. "We feel that the county has really capitulated on a matter of great environmental sensitivity."

In an earlier decision, Planning Commissioners had placed stiff restrictions on Farm House and liquor store operations.

In urging the supervisors to uphold the commission's decision, Grissim had written the supervisors, "Before you is a ploy by a property owner whose manifest failure to comply with conditions of a prior permit has been well documented."

Nelson "now proposes to compound an egregious violation of law [i.e. paving over his leach field] by installing an innovative mound system that will in effect triple the [sewage-treatment] capacity of his enterprise."

Warning of 'precedent' Granting Nelson's application could set "a very dangerous precedent for other business-property owners who will now be encouraged to view the addition of mound systems as a [legally defensible] first option for expansion," Grissim wrote. "This simply must not be allowed to happen."

In June, planning commissioners ordered Nelson to tear up the paving he laid over half of the restaurant's parking lot in May -- on grounds the paving covers the Farm House's leachfield and violates Nelson's county septic permit.

Commissioners also denied Nelson's request to increase the amount of seating permitted in the Farm House, to legalize his neon signs, and to extend liquor and deli hours.

However, after county officials delayed a public hearing on the appeal four times over nearly three months, Nelson and septic engineer Vince Meglio came up with plans for an experimental, recirculating gravel-filtered septic system that can dispose of more sewage than the old one.

Planners and supervisors this week were convinced that the proposed septic system would need less oxygen and could be paved over.

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