Water supply, traffic and rate of development key issues in future of Coastside
Julia Scott
Mercury News
04/26/2011
Questions of coastal water supply, traffic and land zoning dominated a Board of Supervisors discussion Tuesday as officials charted a path for Midcoast development over the next 30 years.
Growth along the scenic Midcoast -- the unincorporated communities of Miramar, El Granada, Moss Beach, Princeton-by-the-Sea and Montara -- is governed by the Local Coastal Program, a key document that transfers planning power from the California Coastal Commission to the county.
The effort to update the current program started 11 years ago and, to many people, the lengthy process has been a symbol of the glacial pace of change on the Coastside. The supervisors are now one meeting away from adopting the final plan and sending it to the Coastal Commission for approval.
But the county has not been able to comply with all the commission's demands, so county officials would be taking a big chance by sending the document in its current form. The commission could disapprove of some recent changes and send the entire document back to the county's drawing board.
The Midcoast's projected growth rate is modest -- no more than 40 new homes each year.
"I don't think we're going to see overwhelming development, nor should we," Supervisor Adrienne Tissier said. "I would like the message to the (commission) to be that this is a living document the community can accept and, if they choose not to, we will be going back in 10 years."
Several key parts of the document changed significantly in recent weeks when the Montara Water and Sanitary District announced it would repeal its decades-long moratorium on new water connections in Montara and Moss Beach. The agency now claims to have enough potable water to supply more than 600 new residential connections -- including any homes built between now and 2020.
The Coastal Commission has asked for a ban on new private wells on the Midcoast until the county can produce a comprehensive groundwater management plan. Now the county says it will permit up to five new wells each year for three years, until the Montara Water and Sanitary District is ready to take over.
Under the program, anyone building a new home would have to pay roughly $14,000 for a new water connection -- no exceptions.
