County stream protection rules back for debate

Angela Hart, THE PRESS DEMOCRAT

August 28 Planning Commission Agenda

For decades, property owners, environmentalists and policymakers in Sonoma County have been split over how to protect 3,200 miles of streams and creeks outside city boundaries.

The ongoing debate, which some landowners view as a direct threat to their property rights, took a turn in 1989, when the county drafted a new general plan that mandated protections for year-round and seasonal creeks and rivers.

The debate grew especially heated eight years ago, when the county began discussions that would ultimately lead to increased general plan restrictions on farming, grazing and building near streams. Two public hearings at the time drew hundreds of people and packed a theater at the Wells Fargo Center for the Arts in Santa Rosa.

Now county planning commissioners are expected to take the next step in settling the standoff, weighing an ordinance that would align county zoning rules with the land-use restrictions spelled out in the general plan. The Planning Commission’s public hearing on the zoning changes is at 1 p.m. Thursday. Any final decision would be up to the Board of Supervisors.

County officials said the proposed zoning changes were designed to reinforce practices already underway.

“We’ve heard a lot of concerns raised by the public, so these new zoning rules would clear up any misunderstanding about what this ordinance would and would not do,” said Jennifer Barrett, a deputy director with the county’s Permit and Resource Management Department. “It might look like we’re adding a whole new code, but what we’re actually doing is changing the language to make it more clear.”

via County stream protection rules back for debate | The Press Democrat.

Leave a Reply