Dwayne Hunn

359 Jean St.  Mill Valley, CA 94941

 415-383-7880, Fax 383-0806 attila@myexcel.com

 

February 13, 2001

 

 

 

Cathi Osugi, Wildlife Biologist

U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service

911 NE 11th Avenue

Portland, Org 97232-4181

503-231-6161 fax

 

Re:  Baylands Refuge Mapping

 

Dear Cathi Osugi:

 

Recently the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service (F&W) began a Bay Land Refuge mapping process for the North Bay.  Canalways, an 85 acre parcel located in East San Rafael, was listed on your web page and in the Marin Independent Journal as a possible site to be included in the Bay Land Refuge.   The owners request that their property not be included in the Refuge mapping.

 

As Project Leader Manager Marge Kolar has indicated to me and I have explained to the owners, including Canalways in the mapping has not been instigated by outsiders but is merely part of a study process by which F&W list presently undeveloped properties that were once tidelands.  Since these properties are 1) undeveloped and 2) once were tidelands, F&G lists these as lands they may be interested in possibly purchasing at some time in the future. 

 

In a perfect world, the property owners have no problems with this process.  In the too often illogical world of local Marin politics and in the machinery of government follow through, the owners have several problems with having their property included in the Refuge.  Some of their reasons for not wanting to be listed follow.  We hope these reasons will allow you to take them out of the present mapping plans.  Please understand that the reasons for wanting out are not antagonistically intended against the F&W process.  Their reasons to not want to be included in the Baylands Refuge generally reflect the desire to save time, money and effort that are often consumed by being included in even well-intentioned processes. 

 

Some reasons for not including Canalways:

1.       Canalways was once a tideland; so too was all the land surrounding it and most of the land running up and beyond what is the now San Rafael’s Bus Hub, which lies about a mile away as the bird flies.  Immediately adjacent to Canalways on one side is Home Depot and on the other is Spinnaker Bay Point Homes.  Canalways is one of the few remaining larger parcels in San Rafael that remains to address a myriad of pressing housing, office and revenue needs. Because Canalways was once a tidelands should not be a reason for automatically casting it into a refuge.

2.       Many regulatory agencies believe Canalways has wetlands and endangered species issues that must be addressed.  Few agencies realize that for a long time the City of San Rafael’s pond had a broken 60” pipe that caused the Bay to flood back onto the City’s Canalways situated pond.  That broken pipe and the undredged for 37 years City pond caused water to flood the property owners’ site for years. Few agencies realize that the endangered species issue is based on finding one salt marsh harvest mouse and a possible second that “had the gestalt of” a SMHM.  Those mice were trapped over 28 years ago.  In late 1998 the City finally fixed the broken pipe.  Before it was done, however, the Canalways partnership had to exert much time and legal costs toward the local government agency to get them to fix the pipe for which they were responsible.  Canalways will address its valid wetlands and endangered species issues, but their experience indicates to them that the fewer regulatory agencies involved with their land the more cost effective and better for the community their future development can be.

3.       As Canalways moves through the development process there will be plenty of opportunities to work with agencies such as F&G to discuss the possibilities of selling some portion of the site for a refuge.  In most such purchase cases, local environment groups come up with funding sources to purchase sensitive lands.  Marin has many very active groups who believe they do environmentally conscious work and they do not need to have Canalways labeled as a “refuge” in order to raise needed money.  If they need such labeling to raise money, we suggest F&W wait till such development is much closer to happening.

4.       Merely being innocently labeled by F&W as a refuge will probably force Canalways to exert unnecessary time, effort, and costs to the process necessary to bring community benefits via developing Canalways. Too often from North Bay and West Marin land owners Canalways has heard stories of lands being included in a refuge or open space districts that then causes the land to be 1) devalued and 2) exposed to additional governmental time and money consuming requirements.  Too often these additional loops through which the property owner is forced to jump add only costs and time to addressing pressing regional and community needs.

5.       Too often from North Bay and West Marin landowners Canalways has heard stories of lands being included in refuges or open space districts that then were exposed to weak and inaccurate science by government engineered projects.  These actions have caused financial losses and burdens to land owners that would not have happened had the landowners been left to doing their own more sensitive, knowledgeable and cost effective work.  The Tolay Creek project is one such poorly engineered project whose costly headaches to involved property owners the Canalways owners wish to avoid.

6.       Too often Marin landowners have to deal with illogical and people-insensitive groups who dub themselves as environmentalists.  These politically adept and well-connected groups use government programs, such as the Baylands Refuge, to twist the purpose of those well-intentioned government programs to their myopic goals and advantage.  Their decades of success in doing such has caused Marin to be train and Bart less, developed without pedestrian friendly villages that provide a mix of uses and affordable housing and exposed to traffic gridlock approaching 8 hours a day that wreaks havoc on family life.

7.       Eighty-four percent of Marin lies in Open Space, Agricultural Reserve and Park Lands.  Since development is largely confined to the urban corridor, traffic gridlocked Marin commuters develop the perception that development is the cause of traffic.  Marin’s pressing needs is not addressed by putting this urban corridor parcel in a Baylands Refuge. 

8.       In the last year the average sales price of a Marin County home passed $700,000.   Long ago the money and staff time spent on Bayland Refuges for Marin should have been replaced with Affordable Housing or Transit Refuges.  Any time, money or effort that Canalways must devote to offsetting the distortions that some Marin’s myopic environmentalists will attach to having Canalways labeled as a “Refuge” deprives it of that time, energy, and money that could be used for addressing Marin’s more pressing needs, such as housing and traffic relief.

 

Allow me to close with two requests/suggestions. 

A.    Your web site “Proposed Marin Baylands Wildlife Refuge” http://www.r1.fws.gov/planning/pu1.pdf does not BOLDLY STATE that this is merely an optional program.  The page does not state that inclusion in the proposed Baylands refuge SHOULD AND WILL NOT HAVE DETRIMENTAL IMPACTS ON THE VALUE OF THE LAND should the landowner(s) choose not to have their land included, or choose not to use the purchase options inherent in being included in the program.  Having your literature and web pages state such would help mollify the concern land owners have when well-intentioned government programs are implemented and then sometimes twisted in politically charged communities.

B.     Are there federal program that place lands in something like an “Affordable Housing Refuge” or “Mixed Use Transit Oriented Development Refuge.”   Your assistance in leading us to such a program (or renaming your program such) would do more to keep the region’s air clean of traffic pollution, preserve the region’s resource and land consumption and thereby benefit endangered species while also helping struggling families.  In Marin such programs are much more needed than is a refuge mapping program.

 

Thanks for your time and attention to Canalways concerns.  We look forward to your assistance with our concerns.

 

 

Sincerely,

 

 

Dwayne Hunn

Canalways consultant

 

CC:

Bay Planning Coalition

Ellen  Johnck

Mayor Al Boro & Council Members

San Rafael

San Rafael Planning Department

Dave Bernardi

San Rafael Chamber

Elissa Giambastianni

Supervisor Cynthia Murray & Board Members

Marin Board of Supervisors

Senator Diane Feinstein

Senator Barbara Boxer

Congresswoman Lynn Woolsey

Assemblyman Joe Nation

Dredge Committee

Frank Hall

Tito Sasaki, Vic President

North Bay Agricultural Coalition