On Tuesday July 13th, the Marin County Board of Supervisors will consider approving a plan by the Community Development Agency (CDA) to finalize some updates to the Marin County Local Coastal Program (LCP) while retaining the environmental hazards policies that were written in the early 1980s.
It is unacceptable that the County would agree to finalize their LCP Amendments with a forty-year-old environmental hazards chapter while our communities are experiencing the impacts of a changing climate with rising sea levels, emergent groundwater, severe storms, flooding, erosion, increased wildfire risks, and drought.
Why This Matters
If you ever wondered why our communities continue to look and feel the way they do, a large part of that is due to the LCP process that created a pathway for local communities to plan for development in the coastal zone and protect our coastal resources thanks to the California Coastal Act.
Marin County's LCP was last updated in 1981/1982. The County has been working to update its LCP since 2008. Now, after more than 13 years, the County staff has a plan to certify everything except the hazards chapter with a promise to work on updating hazards in the next year.
The hazards chapter is the last step in this process to finalize our county's LCP. Arguably, it is one of the most important steps as it will guide the future vision for our coastal communities and habitats as we all face the challenges of a changing climate.
Without proper guidance and planning, our coastal communities could look and feel very different in the coming years and for the next generation.
How can policies from the 1980s inform development in the face of the climate crisis?
What do we want our communities to look like in the next 20, 30, and 50 years as we adapt to the impacts of the climate crisis?
What will Stinson Beach look like when our children are adults? Will there be any beach left? Will our communities exist behind seawalls? Will houses on stilts dot the coastal landscape isolated from critical infrastructure? Or can we come up with a better plan?
The staff report calls Marin County a “national leader in coastal adaptation planning,” but how can Marin be a national leader with hazards policies from the 1980s?
As Marin County moves forward with large-scale green infrastructure projects to protect property and beaches, the missing policies will hinder the process as there is no foundational legal framework for the projects, and the result will be a piecemeal approach to development in the coastal zone rather than a long-term plan and vision for a future that seeks to adapt to changing climate conditions.
Inconsistencies will Harm our Coastal Communities
Implementing new parts of the LCP with 1980s environmental hazards chapters creates inconsistencies and issues with implementation. Our coastal communities deserve better. We need a fully updated LCP so that we can comprehensively plan for a future where we can adapt to the conditions we will face along the coast, while protecting our irreplaceable coastal resources.
The 2019 Land Use Plan (LUP) and Implementation Plan (IP) contain references to conflicting policies that do not provide the CDA staff or the public with clear direction on development requirements
The 2019 LUP and IP contain several references to draft update environmental hazards policies no longer exist.
The 1981 hazards chapter contains outdated policies.
The 1981 hazards chapter does not address our current risk of wildfire, as we indicated to the CDA and Marin County Fire (read our letter dated June 29, 2021 to Marin County Wildfire Prevention Authority).
Implementing amendments without the accompanying updated hazards policies will lead to non-compliance and public confusion while our fire teams are working to implement defensible space initiatives and launch a public information campaign for vegetation management.
Eroded Trust
Yes, the CDA is telling us, yet again, that they promise to work on the hazards chapter this year. We have heard this before, in fact, three times the public has been promised that the hazards chapter was a priority since 2015. Unfortunately, the timeline for this critical update has been fraught with delays, withdrawals, and a lack of prioritization. Now this!?!
2015 Environmental Hazards Delayed due to C-SMART Effort
In 2015, the CDA proposed the Board withhold the resubmittal of hazards at that time to, “ensure that Environmental Hazards policies ultimately reflect the findings of the C-SMART effort and provide clear, reasonable, and fair provisions for guiding development in areas subject to hazards.”[1] While C-SMART was a valuable process, which EAC participated in, this is the first example of a County-caused delay related to hazards. LCPs are supposed to guide development in the Coastal Zone and plan for hazards regardless of other perhaps related planning processes.
2016 - 2017 Environmental Hazards Withdrawn
At the November 2, 2016 Coastal Commission hearing, the County withdrew hazards, planning to come back the first half of next year (2017) per former Supervisor and Commissioner Steve Kinsey.[2] Following the Commission hearing, a requirement was created that the County come back by September 29, 2017 with hazards[3]. On July 26, 2017, rather than resubmitting, the County officially withdrew hazards. The County withdrew the hazards sections with the intention to re-submit them in 2018, citing no practical way of finishing discussions and holding a stakeholder meeting before the September 29th deadline for Coastal Commission action.
2017 - 2019 The County Makes No Progress on Environmental Hazards, Instead Prioritizing Small Changes
Shortly after the 2016 Commission hearing, a protracted struggle between the County and the Coastal Commission staff over former Commissioner Kinsey's ad-hoc modifications of the definition to "ongoing agriculture" developed. Since that time, the primary focus of the County was to challenge the Commission’s interpretations of this language, further delaying work on hazards. The County failed to initiate meetings with local stakeholders and environmental groups to discuss hazards revisions. Finally, in April 2018, the County accepted some of the LCP amendments (1, 2, and 6), delaying approval of amendment 3 (agriculture) and 7 (definitions).
Throughout this entire process, EAC advocated to move forward with the amendments and focus on hazards. The timeline in the staff presentation indicated that the staff would finalize amendments 3 and 7 before the end of 2018 and plan to work on hazards in 2019.
In October 2018, the County’s Planning Commission moved forward with amendments 3 and 7, making some small changes. The Board held two hearings on these amendments, and they voted unanimously in December to move the LCP amendments to the Coastal Commission with revisions that include supportive language for carbon sequestration and clarifying language for the definition of irrigation. Then in 2019, the Coastal Commission certified all of the non-hazards’ amendments.
2020-2021 Additional Delays in Working on Hazards
The County formed a Coastal Communities Working Group in 2020 comprised primarily of village associations with a couple NGOs including EAC; however, the environmental hazards sections were not meaningfully raised until April 22, 2021.
Enough is enough.
It is past time for Marin to update the hazards chapter.
No more procedural delays. No more empty promises.
The California coastal zone is a distinct and valuable resource of interest to all people and exists as a delicately balanced ecosystem. Permanent protection of the natural and scenic resources is a paramount concern to present and future residents of the state and nation. It is necessary to protect the ecological balance of the coastal zone and prevent its deterioration and destruction to promote public safety, health, and welfare; protect public and private property, wildlife, marine fisheries, and other ocean resources and the natural environment.. Existing developed uses, and future developments must be carefully planned and developed consistent with the Coastal Act. - Paraphrased California Legislative findings, California Coastal Act, Chapter 1, Section 30001
** This action alert has been modified to remove the action items, as the deadlines have passed. Thank you to those of you that submitted written comments! **
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Staff Report, Resubmittal of Local Coastal Program - Land Use Plan Amendments (LUPA) and Implementation Program Amendments (IPA) to California Coastal Commission, Marin County Community Development Agency, Page 5, August 25, 2015, available at: www.marincounty.org/-/media/files/departments/cd/planning/local-coastal/lcp-amendment/82515-board-letter.pdf?la=en
[2] See Coastal Commission hearing video, November 2, 2016, available at: https://cal-span.org/unipage/?site=cal-span&owner=CCC&date=2016-11-02, starting at 6:34.
[3] STAFF REPORT ADDENDUM for F11a Marin County Local Coastal Program Amendment Number LCP-2-MAR-15- 0029-1 Revised Findings, Page 3, July 13, 2017, available at: https://www.marincounty.org/-/media/files/departments/cd/planning/local-coastal/newdocs/ccc-revised-findings-staff-report-and-addendum-71417.pdf?la=en
