T

he case against implementing a Baylands Refuge in the North Bay:

a. Eighty-four percent of Marin County lies in Open Space, Agricultural Reserve and Park Lands. Only a small portion of the remaining 16% of the land remains to be developed. Much of that minimal amount of remaining lands will fall within the Baylands Mapping Boundary.

b. Being placed in the Baylands Mapping Boundary causes immense perceptual problems for those who own or may want to develop those few remaining useable acres. In communities like Marin, NIMBY political powers have more time and energy to disrupt good planning proposals than those stuck in traffic in need of affordable housing and transit solutions.

c. Developing workplace housing, energy efficient transit solutions and pedestrian friendly communities are critical issues that need addressing more than putting lands in a Refuge Boundary; and then later adding buffer zones to the Refuge Boundary. Government officials should find more worthwhile uses into which to invest their time and taxpayers’ dollars.

d. Local and county government planning, as reflected in Marin’s land and demographic statistics, have done a credible job of protecting the wildlife and limiting Marin’s land use. There is no need to bring in an undesired and un-requested federal Refuge Mapping Program.

e. The per acre value of the 17,000 acres proposed for placing in the Refuge Mapping Zone ranges from several hundred thousand dollars per acre to a million dollars per acre. If the Fish and Wildlife Service has that kind of taxpayer dollars available, then it should be spent on addressing Marin’s more pressing housing and transit needs.

f. City and County General Plans (Marin County and San Rafael City’s are presently being updated) as well as several “Stakeholders Meetings” that have run for years have been used to micro manage private properties. Many of those zealously micro-managed properties are now included under this undesired Baylands Refuge. This additional Refuge process will further increase property owners’ costs and headaches that will further harm Marin’s disastrous housing and traffic problems.

g. Placing these properties in a Baylands refuge will reduce the tax revenues that Marin’s jurisdictions presently depend on for important parts of their revenue streams.

h. Owners of the land placed in the Refuge have historically found their property values depleted. Historically, land devaluations have not only negatively impacted the Refuge Mapped lands but also those lands that have consequently been labeled as “needed buffer zones.”

i. By usurping local land use decisions with their Federal Refuge Overlay Map, the Federal Government is imposing un-funded mandates on local jurisdictions – further exacerbating local revenue concerns.

j. Being placed in a Refuge Mapping Zone opens the land and its land owners to both perceptual and real problems over how that land can henceforth be used. Can horseback riding, bike riding, hiking, soccer, recreational facilities, train right of way usage, beneficial reuse of dredge spoils, etc., be allowed on Refuge mapped lands? Marin has enough basic issues that need addressing without being burden with a costly and time consuming debate on what can and can’t be done on Refuge mapped lands.

k. Developers are almost always forced to do a full Environmental Impact Report when a project is undertaken. The Fish & Wildlife Service, under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), should do the equivalent of a Full Environmental Impact Report to measure the impact a Baylands Refuge Mapping Boundary will have on regional housing, traffic, energy and business needs. This EIR should be done even before any properties are placed into a proposed Refuge Boundary Mapping Zone.