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Mariposa Planning Commission Meeting On The General Plan Update

November 17, 2006


 

The Mariposa Planning Commission met at 9:00 A.M. on Friday morning with the goal of finalizing the General Plan update and send a recommendation to the Mariposa County Board Of Supervisors.

The  audience consisted of interested members of the public, lawyers, members of MERG and the Sierra Sun Times as the reporting media.

The goal was to go through the update that the Board Of Supervisors had done and see if any revisions were needed. As the hours ticked by members of the audience, lawyers and MERG members addressed the board with questions and recommendations on numerous items. After about seven and a half hours the General Plan had been gone through once again and this time about 22-24 recommended changes were introduced. This plan will now go back to the Board Of Supervisors for a scheduled December 5th and 6th meeting  to take a final look at the plan before approving it.

Chapters 1-4 of the General Plan drew no comment from the public.

Chapter 5 had plenty of comments as Merg members, lawyer Don Starchman, Citizen Ken Melton, Farm Bureau Representative Kathy Pierce and other members of the audience stood up to talk about that chapter.

Clustering was one of the big issues along with expanding the Mariposa Town Planning Area miles bigger than it is currently. To the North the TPA would extend right to Mount Bullion.

Expanding the Mariposa TPA  would allow 5 acre mountain home and other zoning to be changed to 2.5 acres.
With the clustering plan 2.5 acres could have one house on the parcel. MERG talked about carrying capacity for these small lots as far as water and sewers are concerned. Ken Melton mentioned that having to put the septicss in ahead of time would make no sense as the lots might not be developed for a long period of time after the septics were installed. Ken was also concerned with easements creating roads over private properties that the landowner should have the right to grant an easement to a land locked property.

Bart Brown wondered why the maps did not show the airport. He also suggested that the maps be labeled as drafts so that they could be changed if needed. Kathy Pierce also mentioned that the maps were not showing ag land correctly. She also wanted it made clear that Ag land is Ag land and should not be changed in zoning, especially where home based business's are concerned.
The case of impact fees was also brought up  to the planning commission.


As the meeting progressed Planning commissioner Skip Skyrud who represents District 4 had many reservations about the plan as it was presented to the public, noting one incident where about 100 pages of the general plan was unreadable on the internet.
He wondered how he could vote on something that the public could not read for itself.
Mariposa County Staff indicated that as they compressed the file down to a reasonable size that could be uploaded and downloaded to and from the internet  they did not look to see if the file was readable.

 


 

   On Chapters 9-11 the lawyer for Merg brought up the issue of road standards and that wording to that effect should be put into the plan, also mitigation fees should be developed to cover the cost of development.

Chapters 12-16 again brought the lawyer for Merg who wanted mitigation wording put into the plan on recreation and fire fees.

Moving onto Volume Two of the plan, Rita Kidd representing MERG suggested a buffer be put between the Mariposa TPA and the Mount Bullion TPA so there would be some green space between them.

On discussing the EIR, Rita Kidd was concerned about allowing 32 houses on 80 acres and what could happen to the water in that area.

Audience member David Butler stood up to talk about building on the ridges as he said that was preferable to building on steep hillsides and the damage that would cause to the land. As is now, ridge tops are to be protected against building to preserve the natural beauty of the land as being scenic. The commission decided to take out the wording on building on ridge tops.

When it came time to vote if something should be changed in the plan as it was presented to them not all commission members agreed all the time but the discussion item made it to the change list anyway.


Our View Point:

As the day progressed and members of the public dropped out of the meeting one by one I sat and thought how such an important document to be discussed among five Mariposa Planning Commissioners and Five Board of Supervisors, with three staff members along with a few lawyers representing their own interests and a handful of members of the public could work together to the best of their abilty to do what is right without politics or personal beliefs to get in the way of the decision process that will guide Mariposa County for many years.

By signing this document they are saying to the public we did the best we could.

We hope this document is produced as a plan that is looked up to by other counties as they look at updating their General Plan in the future.

Mariposa residents, read on the internet the Mariposa General Plan.
See something you do not like ?
Do you want the town of Mariposa to grow out to Mount Bullion and out to other areas ?
Do you want easements on your property ?
Do you care about water quantity or quality ?
How about building on ridge tops ?
How about 2.5 acre parcel size?
Is clustering okay with you?
Do you want road standards?
How about mitigation fees?
Then be at the next meeting on December 5.












 


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