After nearly a decade seeking county approval to renovate their streamside home and legalize an unpermitted bridge over Barranca Creek, a Lagunitas couple appealed to the Board of Supervisors this week. The appeal followed a determination from planning commissioners last Thursday that the project’s remaining sticking points were above their pay grade.
The Planning Commission, which first heard the case in August, remained largely sympathetic to homeowners Adrienne Terrass and Aldo Tarrigo, an architect. Commissioners characterized the couple as good actors caught in a web of county codes, but would not approve the project until the proposed house was moved out of the setback established by the county’s stream conservation ordinance—a revision commissioners asked for in August.
Commissioners sided with the homeowners on other disputed aspects of the application. In regard to the bridge the couple built without permits in 2006, a majority of commissioners rejected the opinion from the county’s Department of Public Works that the structure had to be torn down to bring it into compliance. Instead, they advocated for keeping it standing.
Yet county staff explained it was not within the commission’s purview to override the department’s opinion. Under Marin regulations pertaining to waterways, Title 11, only the Board of Supervisors could make that decision.
Ultimately, commissioners determined that the easiest way to relieve the homeowners of their bureaucratic nightmare was to deny the entire project and allow them to appeal it to the supervisors.
Mr. Tarigo and Ms. Terrass filed their appeal on Monday.
The commissioners included words of guidance for the supervisors in their denial of the application, in particular detailing their hope that the bridge would stay. Commissioners were persuaded by extensive testimony from Mr. Tarigo, who designed the unpermitted bridge in a pinch to replace a dilapidated structure before winter rains, and by an informal opinion from federal permitting agencies that they would not object to the bridge or file any notice of violation. Commissioners also expressed concern about the environmental impact of tearing down the existing structure, a 12-foot wide concrete bridge that spans just five feet over the creek.
There was no talk on Thursday of the primary cause for the Tarigos’ long-delayed plans, which were first submitted in 2011. The wrench: A court-mandated county analysis of cumulative development impacts on fish in the San Geronimo Valley that stemmed from a 2010 Salmon Protection and Watershed Network lawsuit. That suit first resulted in an injunction on development in the valley and, later, a change in development standards.
The county has an incentive to handle the case quickly. It is now finalizing that cumulative-impact analysis, which could again scramble plans for the project—the only pending development proposal in the valley that could get caught in the crosshairs of the updated conservation standards.
Since the August hearing when the Planning Commission first heard the project, the Tarigos have resolved a few outstanding issues with county planners. Their project now reduces the original total footprint of 6,118 square feet by 1,698 square feet, resulting in a proposed lot coverage of 4,420 square feet. The plans raze and replace the main house and a second unit, and add a garage.
County staff commended the applicants for replacing the septic system and for their commitment to restore creek banks and take out a paved road.
A handful of neighbors provided testimony at the hearing, affirming that the Tarigos were good-natured neighbors who consistently demonstrated exemplary environmental stewardship of their land.
“These are good and honest people—we’ve heard that from their neighbors—and I’m not a sucker,” District Four Commissioner Chris Desser said. “I’m convinced by their testimony. They are making an effort to comply with the rules and regulations, acting in good faith as environmental stewards, building a house that is an environmentally sound house… and I think they need to be put out of their misery, I really do.”
Other commissioners were more skeptical. “I recognize this project as a mess, a mess made by the applicant,” Commissioner John Eller said. “This is an architect who knows better, an architect who made a decision to build something without a permit. That, I think, is semi-excusable for an unqualified professional or a typical owner, but an architect, to me, stands to a higher standard.”
In a straw vote, however, Commissioner Eller voted in favor of directing the supervisors to keep the bridge. Just two commissioners voted against that provision.
Commissioner Don Dickenson, who voted against it, said he believed that the dispute between experts—in this case the Department of Public Works versus the informal opinion of the other permitting agencies—would best be handled by an environmental impact report. Indeed, the California Environmental Quality Act mandates such in instances of agency disagreement.
That was also the opinion of the county’s environmental planning manager in June—the opinion the Tarigos appealed and thus brought to the commission.
Yet others, such as Commissioner Desser, who represents West Marin on the supervisor-appointed commission, said it was absurd to require the owners of a single-family residence to conduct a full-blown E.I.R., a process typical only with larger-scale projects. Commissioner Desser also emphasized that the applicants vowed that they would not be able to undertake the remodel should they be forced to pay for an E.I.R.
She also expressed frustration with the Department of Public Works for being “recalcitrant” and “not cutting them a break” in regard to the bridge construction. The department had cited seven code violations, including that the bridge was not built high enough to account for the flood waters of a 100-year storm and that the bridge’s abutments were inside the creek channel, as opposed to beyond the top of the banks.
Mr. Tarigo contended that the department was not using the best available local data for storm predictions—which show a lower flow—and that the foundation of the bridge was not impairing the creek since it was connected to bedrock in the same place as the previous structure.
Commissioner Dickenson was the only one to vote against the commission’s final denial of the appeal, due to its sympathetic directions to the board.
Addressing the commission on Thursday, Ms. Terrass described the burdens of the process. “Our project is not abstract or theoretical—it is about actual, real-world conditions and daily life and nature,” she said. “It also isn’t rocket engineering, it’s bridge engineering. It’s become clear to many how unduly burdensome this process has been for us.”
She continued, “The county has laudable goals for environmental protections, but it cannot expect it will be effective by allowing a narrow bureaucratic interpretation to interfere with the overall intent and purpose of these goals and state
regulations.”