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