California: Santa Cruz County Board Prohibits Logging in Residential
Areas
12/18/99
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RELAYED TEXT STARTS HERE:
Title: LOGGING VICTORY - IN DEPTH
Source: Jodi Frediani
Status: Copyright 1999, contact source for permission to reprint
Date: December 18, 1999
Byline: Jodi Frediani
The Santa Cruz County Board of Supervisors voted 3-2 to prohibit
logging in residential zone districts, after a public hearing last
Tuesday, December 14.
The supervisors approved an ordinance limiting logging to the Timber
Production Zone (TPZ), Commercial Agriculture (CA), PR and M3
(mining) districts. They also voted to send the recently adopted
Helicopter Ordinance and Riparian 50' No-Cut Buffer Ordinance to the
Coastal Commission for approval.
The Board made their decision using the County's authority to
determine "where" logging can take place. A 1995 San Mateo Appeals
Court Case upheld San Mateo County's right to create 1000' no-cut
residential buffers. The court ruled that, while the State has sole
authority to determine "how" logging operations are conducted,
counties retain the authority to decide "where" such activities
occur.
The Tuesday evening hearing was attended by an overflow crowd of
frustrated residents and mountain property owners disturbed by
logging near their homes and angry timberland owners and industry
members. Many opponents of the new ordinance cried "takings",
insisting that they had every right to do as they wished with "their
trees." Local foresters and loggers, including a large contingent
of family members and employees of Big Creek Lumber, testified that
such a decision by the Board was illegal and would halt logging in
the county.
While the Board decision will no longer allow timber harvesting on
parcels zoned primarily for residential use, owners of appropriate
timberland may apply to rezone their property to the TPZ district.
The County continues to offer drastically reduced fees for such
rezoning (Reduced from $5000 to $750.)
Proponents of the new ordinance feel that timberland owners need to
make a commitment to long-term sustainable timber management through
rezoning. According to the County staff report, the new zoning
ordinance will take about 11,000 acres out of timber production, but
65,000 acres of land remain loggable in the TPZ district alone.
Environmentalists were also present in large numbers at the hearing
and a representative of the Santa Cruz Biotic Baking Brigade (SCBBB)
landed a pie squarely on the back of Patrick Moore, Greenpeace
founder and enviro-for-hire representing the timber industry. Moore,
who had just begun to testify on behalf of Big Creek Lumber, saw the
pie coming and ran from the podium. However, after being splattered
by the lemon meringue, Moore, took a well placed swing at SCBBB's
Agent Sequoia Berry sending him flying into a room partition. Moore
said he thought the pie-thrower "had a weapon."
Denise Kehoe, attorney for Big Creek Lumber, testified that the local
timber company will amend their lawsuit against the County's Riparian
No-Cut buffer to include the recent zoning action. Kehoe, told the
Board members that they were "unqualified" to make such a decision
and their staff was equally unqualified to draft such an ordinance.
Kehoe singled out Dave Hope as only having a degree in Psychology.
Kehoe ignored the fact that Hope is a Registered Professional
Forester with years of field experience both as a logger and as a
Resource Planner. Hope recently left Santa Cruz to take a position
reviewing timber operations in Mendocino and Sonoma Counties for the
Regional Water Quality Control Board.
Tuesday's decision was a well-deserved victory for the environmental
community. Members of the local Sierra Club Forestry Task Force,
Citizens for Responsible Forest Management (CRFM), Valley Women's
Club, RAN, Summit Watershed Protection League, Wildwood Neighborhood
Association and others worked long and hard over the past two years
to create positive change in local logging.
The Board of Supervisors set up a Timber Technical Advisory Committee
(TTAC) in 1997 to look at zoning alternatives to local logging
conflicts. At the request of Mike Jani, then Forester for Big Creek
Lumber, the TTAC also discussed ideas for new special Santa Cruz rule
changes to the Forest Practice Rules. The final rule package was
adopted by the County Board for submittal to the Board of Forestry
after numerous negotiation sessions involving Big Creek's Jani,
Supervisor Almquist and CRFM's Mark Morganthaler.
However, the timber industry opposed the proposed rule package at all
Board of Forestry (BoF) hearings, and the most significant rules were
rejected by both Governor Wilson's Board and the partially
reconstituted Board of Gray Davis. The latter suggested that Santa
Cruz County needed to solve its own local conflicts. So that is
exactly what the Santa Cruz Board of
Supervisors did.
Unfortunately, the story does not end here. The California State
Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (CDF) has stated it will
not enforce the County's Riparian No-Cut Buffer Ordinance. Big Creek
Lumber has filed suit against the County on all the new zoning
ordinances. Perhaps industry will try to get legislative change as
they did in 1983 when Santa Clara County was about to prohibit all
logging in their county, and the legislature took away county
authority to regulate timber harvesting.
In the meantime, the community has sent a strong message to local
industry: Santa Cruz is no longer willing to tolerate business as
usual.