Marin County supervisors on Tuesday blasted the Salmon Protection and Watershed Network for its attempts to block a proposed 1,400-square-foot home in the Lagunitas Creek watershed on the basis that it would contribute to cumulative impacts to the region.
The appeal hearing, which began as a disagreement over county development policy, concluded with harsh reproaches unleashed by supervisors, none of whom were more critical than West Marin’s representative to the board, Steve Kinsey.
“SPAWN can campaign as saviors of the fish, but they’re really saboteurs because they undermine the ability of the whole community to rally together,” he said at the close of Tuesday’s regular board meeting. “For a wide range of reasons, I think it’s important for us to understand that SPAWN is not a friend of the fish in the San Geronimo Valley, and it certainly is no friend of the county. We are paying a heavy price, and it needs to stop.”
Submitted in 2011 by the parcel owner, Israel Saban, the project involves demolishing an existing property—of which only 265 square feet remain—and constructing a new single-story, single-family residence and garage.
In 2012, plans to build the property were put on ice following a court-ordered moratorium on development in the valley. That ban ended in 2014 with a ruling by a California appellate court, upheld soon after in Marin Superior Court.
Since then, county planners have pushed for the project to receive a variance that would relieve it of minimum 100-foot setback requirements and a declaration of “less-than-significant” environmental impact. But SPAWN has bristled at those findings, and suggested county planners’ view on the matter is shortsighted.
Over time, SPAWN argued, incremental property development in the watershed could wipe out coho salmon and steelhead trout in Lagunitas Creek and its tributaries; rather than evaluate each development proposal on a case-by-case basis, the county should consider the potential cumulative future impacts of all projects like Mr. Saban’s.
Indeed, SPAWN said, with the Saban project, the county is not adequately meeting the environmental standards set forth in both the 1994 Countywide Plan and the California Environmental Quality Act.
“Essentially, we don’t have a handle on how much development you can have on parcels like this and still protect the salmon,” said Doug Karpa, an attorney for SPAWN, during Tuesday’s meeting. “We’re not saying don’t build it at all, but let’s sit down and talk about what the baseline standard [for environmental-impact evaluation] should be.”
But county staff has countered that evaluating the Saban project from a “baseline” of future cumulative impacts would be impractical. Even if some future proposals might cause significant negative impacts to the watershed, the Saban project, on its own, does not.
“It’s not the appropriate baseline,” said Jeremy Tejirian, the principal planner for the project. “To really deal with the environment of the fish, we need to address the issue on the ground.”
Mr. Tejirian said that because the parcel in question has become so degraded over its 90-year history, the new proposal could, in fact, improve it. The Saban plans call for broadening the tributary and installing a higher-quality Advantex septic tank, he noted.
Supervisor Kinsey concurred, as did his four colleagues, who unanimously denied the appeal.
Marin County and SPAWN have a long, litigious history, dating back to the advocacy group’s successful prevention in 2004 of a 3,649-square-foot home proposed by a now-imprisoned landowner, Joshua Hedlund. Then, prior to the adoption of the 2007 Countywide Plan, SPAWN insisted that the county draft a supplemental environmental impact report to incorporate tougher environmental-impact mitigation measures into its planning process. To avoid further litigation, the county agreed to create a “Salmon Enhancement Plan.”
That plan, Supervisor Kinsey said on Tuesday, cost the county $300,000 in outside consultant fees, and has not produced any real conservation results. He said more time and money spent fighting SPAWN could hamper any future efforts to restore riparian habitat and promote environmentally-sensitive housing developments in the San Geronimo
Valley.
“This is counterproductive,” he said. “It’s wasteful of human resources. It’s wasteful of county resources. It’s also divisive. It tears our community apart.”
Though he agreed that Supervisor Kinsey’s words were sharp, Mr. Karpa told the Light that they were not surprising.
“It’s been a long and very difficult process,” said Mr. Karpa, whose time working for SPAWN falls just short of one year. “There have been a tremendous amount of resources spent. Make no mistake, these are difficult issues.”
Mr. Karpa did not indicate whether SPAWN would pursue legal action. (SPAWN’s founder and executive director, Todd Steiner, informed the Light that he is in Costa Rica until Friday and could not provide comment.)
Others, however, expect it may only be a matter of time before a lawsuit arrives.
“SPAWN has done nothing but sue, sue, sue,” said Niz Brown, a 55-year resident of the valley and former president of the San Geronimo Valley Stewards. “It will be interesting to see if they sue with this one.”
A project under the umbrella of the Turtle Island Restoration Network, SPAWN is a Forest Knolls-based nonprofit that advocates for the protection of endangered coho salmon and steelhead trout populations inhabiting waterways in West Marin.
As of 2005, the National Marine Fisheries Service has identified Central California coast coho salmon as endangered and steelhead trout as threatened under the federal Endangered Species Act.