Last Chance to Save the Coast from Development
Save the Sonoma Coast, a group of longtime coastal advocates:
If you care about our Sonoma County coast, it’s time to communicate with the Sonoma County Board of Supervisors and the California Coastal Commission about proposed revisions to the Local Coastal Plan (LCP).
Eight years of hundreds of hours of public testimony at many public meetings, including before the Planning Commission, and thousands of pages of public comment on drafts have brought us to a juncture of grave import to the future of the Sonoma coast.
Most recently, the Board of Supervisors seemed poised to adopt the recommendations of its Planning Commission. Suddenly all that public input and the Planning Commission recommendations have been tossed aside.
Permit Sonoma is now instead recommending adoption of a series of policies that greatly weaken coastal zone protections–the very protections that drove adoption of the CA Coastal Act and are why this magnificent coast is the gem we enjoy today.
Permit Sonoma recommendations would remove protections for views, animal habitat, forests and waterways, including protections to unique parcels protected in the original LCP for important, still-relevant reasons. Zoning changes to open up the coast to development would come later, when it is too late to protect the coast from negative impacts on its unique landscape and natural resources.
Do you want more planned communities, tourism venues, vineyards-to-the-sea with pesticides and multiple events closing off beaches to the public?? Do you want gigantic industrial facilities along the shore at Bodega Bay to support seabed mining or to bring electricity from offshore wind turbines to the SF Bay Area without local communities having any say about how it’s done or what it looks like??
There is a lot to absorb, yet you might want to read through the latest Policy Options, especially those on subjects of particular import to you personally. Here is the link:
https://permitsonoma.org/longrangeplans/proposedlong-rangeplans/proposedlocalcoastalplanupdate.
In a nutshell: Revisions recommended by Permit Sonoma for Agricultural Fencing, Campgrounds, Fire Fuel Management, Offshore Energy Production and Mining, Site-Specific Uses, and Public Access (in the “Technical Corrections” section), are all about keeping deer out of vineyards, encouraging more commercial tourism development, allowing aggressive timber harvesting policy from Cal-Fire as an excuse to take out trees in the way of new roads to construction sites for more vineyards and tourism, allowing industrial development in Bodega Harbor without any public oversight, removing protection from development for Environmentally Sensitive Habitat Areas and charging people to park along the coast while encouraging more visitor traffic.
We recommend you send emails directly to each County Supervisor and our local Coastal Commissioner about why you oppose developing our drought and earthquake-prone, highly erodible, environmentally sensitive forests and natural habitat in the coastal zone with more wells, outside service agreements and septic for more commercial tourism and vineyard development. Because that’s what’s coming our way unless we stand up to oppose it. Urge our Supervisors to stand by the intent of the Coastal Act, birthed right here in Sonoma County, to protect the unique character of our coastline. Do this for today and for future generations to have acccess to the wonders of the Sonoma Coast, unimpeded and unblemished by the those who would give the coast away to the self-serving highest bidders.
Write a brief note asking the Supervisors to adopt the Planning Commission recommendations on the LCP Draft without Permit Sonoma’s proposed damaging revisions to these LCP elements: Agricultural Fencing, Campgrounds, Fire Fuel Management, Site-Specific Uses, Public Access, and Offshore Energy and Mining.
Supervisor Contacts: Susan.Gorin@sonoma.county.org
David.Rabbitt@sonoma-county.org
Coastal Commission Contacts:
NorthCentralCoast@coastal.ca.gov
Thank you for caring.
Save the Sonoma Coast,
a group of longtime coastal advocates