Blue Lake plans annexation... By Matt Kapko Eye Reporter The Arcata Eye March 30, 2004 The classic battle between local and state control is affecting Blue Lake and its plans for growth and development. County and state planners are drawing up much different guidelines for growth than the city has. Grant deadlines for housing and development are pushing the city planners to make some significant changes in the Housing Element of the city’s General Plan. After working for the past year and a half on the city’s plans to annex outlying areas, City Planner Bob Brown and his staff had to pause their work on annexation and rush through an update on the Housing Element to submit it to Sacramento. Without the document updated and approved by the state, the city would be ineligible for California’s Community Development Block Grant. Revisions in the document are intended to meet criteria set by the California Department of Housing and Community Development. The City Council and Planning Commission held a joint meeting on March 23 to discuss these changes and analyze the potential impacts it could bring on the city. “The County is looking for development in the county areas,” Brown told the council and commission. It’s looking to develop more in community services districts because cities would have to annex any land or parcel that it provides services to. Many of the areas beyond Blue Lake’s borders are pre-zoned as one-to-five acre parcels to allow for more growth in these less dense areas, Brown said. “That sounds like the dreaded sprawl,” City Councilmember Brian Julian replied. Many at the meeting were discouraged by the divide between the county and state plans and their own. “We have a sense of what’s going on in this valley,” Mayor Dave Nakamura said. “It’s an illustration of the fact that they have a whole different set of glasses on when it comes to this.” Brown said one of the big issues is “transitional timberlands” – land that is forested now, but may be residential soon. That is primarily the type of development that the county is planning for around Blue Lake, he said. An immediate concern with that is fire protection. The city’s annexation of lands could add as many as a thousand acres to the fire department’s responsibility. “If we had to fight a fire in the forested lands we’d have to extend our resources,” Planning Commission Chair Terrence Gray said. Because of this, the county is being somewhat contradictory in its approach. Brown said the county believes “resource lands” are better protected by the county, nonetheless it still has those same areas pre-zoned for residential use around Blue Lake. The county wants growth in unincorporated areas, but recognizes that the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection is more equipped to protect those often-timbered areas. The Housing and Community Development Department is essentially asking the city to make its development regulations more lenient. It thinks it’s too restrictive to require any developer with plans to build more than four units to present his or her case to the city. City Attorney Richard Platz said the council has to “sellout as much as [it] feels comfortable with.” Therefore, the city is considering adopting performance standards (such as lighting, noise, hazardous materials and landscaping) in lieu of the use-permit requirement. Aside from not being eligible for grants, the city could be sued by developers for not complying with state requirements, Platz added. Planning Commissioner Richard Golebiowski said he’s not pleased that the state has put the city in this position and doesn’t think the bureaucrats in Sacramento have a good sense of what rural life is like in Blue Lake. “It’s the argument of state control versus local control,” City Manager Wiley Buck said. Before he and the rest of council voted in favor of the Housing Element Update, Julian summed up what many were thinking: “I’m not comfortable with this. I would have liked more time with this. It’s a shame that we ended up needing to rush through it.” Home