President's Column

Plan? Why Bother?

by Jim Clark

The Redwood Region Audubon Society's primary concern is the preservation and conservation of wildlife habitat. We recognize that if this is done correctly, environmental and quality of life benefits are more likely to follow. We also recognize that we live in a complex world in which most issues are interrelated. Poverty and homelessness have a negative effect on the environment throughout the world, yet the National Audubon Society focuses mainly on habitat, rather than poverty. Likewise, I am going to focus on environmental planning in Humboldt County, while recognizing that poverty and other human conditions also need to be dealt with at their source.

Most of our membership is probably glad to see the illegal residential use of the South Spit of Humboldt Bay coming to an end. The County Health Officer has declared it a health emergency due to unsanitary and substandard conditions. The controversy and angst caused by the decision to correct this coastal plan violation on the South Spit, though, appears to have overshadowed the real problem, of which the South Spit situation is but a symptom.

Why did the South Spit situation develop in the first place? Who or what is responsible for the regulation of the use of private property in Humboldt County? The answer to that rhetorical question is; "the Planning Department," of course.

The root cause of the development of the rural ghetto on the South Spit was the refusal of the Humboldt Planning Department to enforce its own plan with regard to the allowable uses of private coastal land. As with so many other cases, inappropriate land use resulted in a secondary problem that becomes a bigger problem to be handed off to another agency. One of the excuses offered for non-action was that the landowner, Pacific Lumber Company, could not cope with the situation without county assistance.

A similar, but smaller situation on private property adjacent to Clam Beach was remedied quickly by civil action. This property owner was an individual and the illegal campers were in the public eye rather than out of sight and out of the loop.

What will it take to make our county Planning Department more than plan compliance and development permit facilitation agency? Our constant vigilance and activism!

It will take a lot of work to make the enforcement of planning regulations pro-active and even handed, instead of politically motivated and reactionary.

Redwood Region Audubon Society
P.O. Box 1054, Eureka, CA 95502
Last updated October 1997