By Karen Holzmeister, STAFF WRITER
Inside Bay Area
Friday, June 16, 2006
OAKLAND — Alameda County supervisors have extended a creek development ban in unincorporated areas for another 10 months and two weeks, but with enough exclusions to fill a small watershed.
The decision, after a two-plus hour hearing Thursday, extends a 45-day ban — which ends this weekend — until May 2007. On or before that date, supervisors can stretch out the building embargo for an extra year.
The ban:
- Exempts all of east Alameda County, plus canyon areas north and east of Castro Valley and Fairview. The ban only applies to the West County area on this side of the hills.
- Allows development of single-family housing at a setback of 50 feet from the bank of a waterway, but applications between 20 and 50 feet from the bank will be reviewed.
- Exempts agricultural areas, unless an application for development triggers extension of the ban to agriculturally zoned property.
- Calls for the projects already in the pipeline to be individually reviewed by county planners for inclusion or exclusion from the ban.
- Exempts repairs to existing homes and properties, along with public projects.
Last month, Supervisors Alice Lai-Bitker, Nate Miley and Gail Steele kicked off a two-year study on ways to protect hundreds of creeks, streams, rivers, culverts and channels draining from the hills to the Bay.
The limited development prohibitions approved by the three supervisors and colleague Scott Haggerty are designed to give the county and greater Hayward-area communities time to piece together a preservation plan for waterways and surrounding foliage.
Supervisor Keith Carson was absent.
Not unexpectedly, none of the 50 people present at the hearing was wholly satisfied with the outcome. The split was evident during the hour of divided testimony from 22 speakers.
Preservationists urged supervisors to enact an across-the-board ban. Don't spend time and money preparing a new plan, they insisted. Instead, enforce a 1977 county plan that involves mapping riparian corridors to help prevent erosion and flooding downstream.
"Without a full ban, you are agreeing to put people at risk," said Fairview resident Terry Preston. She displayed a2004 county public works study that spoke of flooding in areas such as San Lorenzo if the hill-area San Lorenzo Creek overflows its banks during rainy seasons.
Developers and property owners pleaded with supervisors not to jeopardize their investments, stating federal, state and local restrictions already provide enough development safeguards around waterways.
Casey Lee, who said her family bought their "dream home" site seven years ago on Canyon Drive in Fairview, faces financial ruin if they can't build on property about 20 feet from a creek.
"We got lots of reports from engineers I can't even name," she testified, adding that her family tried to meet all the county planning department's directives.
The county will host the second of several creek workshops at 6:30 p.m. June 27 at the Ashland Community Center, 1530 167th Ave., in San Leandro.