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Supervisors Divided Over Minimum Acreage Needed for Logging
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Supervisors Divided Over Minimum Acreage Needed for Logging
By Michael Thomas
On Tuesday, May 2, Santa Cruz county supervisors will again debate the minimum amount of land required for timber harvests. The Board of Supervisors struggled to reach consensus at a meeting on Apr. 24, after hearing hours of passionate testimony from forest land owners, neighbors and logging opponents.
The board was evenly divided with Supervisor Jan
Beautz holding the middle ground.
The County presently allows parcels as small as five acres to be approved for logging. The push for a higher standard comes after the County won a state Supreme Court victory last year that upheld the authority to regulate the location of logging through zoning ordinances.
However, the Supreme Court ruling triggered a rush to rezone by property owners who had put their applications on hold until the court case was decided.
In March, the Board of Supervisors approved a rash of rezoning applications totaling over 1,600 acres.
Most of the rezoning applications this year sailed through because they met basic state standards, or sit adjacent to land already zoned for logging and owned by the same property owner.
In such cases, the County is required by law to approve the applications. That has frustrated local environmentalists. Kevin Col-lins of the Lompico Conservancy pointed out that the five-acre standard was established when the County still had broader powers to regulate logging.
“They have this antiquated rule that’s based on when they regulated forest practice,” Collins said.
Now, the County can limit logging to parcels zoned for timber, but beyond that, the State Board of Forestry has complete authority over how loggers conduct individual timber harvests.
Environmentalists Seek 80-Acre Minimum
Collins asked the board to set the minimum for rezoning at 80 acres, which is the highest level allowed by the state. At the Apr. 24 hearing, County Supervisor Mark Stone proposed that level of restriction, but only Supervisor Neal Coonerty supported the motion.
Beautz points out that while many California counties set the bar at the state maximum, they also allow logging on land with other zoning designations.
Beautz wanted to set the minimum parcel size at 30 acres. Her concern was to keep small property owners from timber harvesting land near residential neighborhoods.
“It seemed like that would be the size that would not allow harvests near housing,” Beautz said.
However, County planners evaluated the location of potential timber harvest lands and found little correlation between parcel size and proximity to residential neighborhoods.
“We thought there would be but there was not,” explained Planner Glenda Hill.
Supervisors Tony Campos and Ellen Pirie were willing to support a maximum of 20 acres, leaving the board deadlocked and pushing the decision off to a second hearing.
Pirie points out that the County has some of the most restrictive standards for logging in the entire state.
“People who are arguing for 40 acres or more are really doing it to oppose all logging,” Pirie said. “I have a gut feeling that it gets unreasonable.”
Pirie added that she didn’t want to limit a property owner’s right to use their own land.
“Also I talked to people who kept their land as timber land and it was kind of their nest egg,” she added. “To take that away from people without some clear reason didn’t seem right to me.”
Local registered foresters, who prepare timber management plans and timber harvest plans, have also argued that increased lot size requirements will compel property owners to develop their land instead.
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