Dealing with Nevada County’s Community Development Agency (CDA) and Code Compliance Department can be brutal. I know, I speak from experience. It may not be obvious to the general public, but there’s been plenty of tension between the County’s (CDA) and many homeowners/homebuilders… enough so that in 2020 it warranted an independent internal review of the department, which cost us taxpayers thousands of dollars. You can view consultant Erin Noel’s final “public” report here: https://bit.ly/CDA-Review-2020.
Don’t get me wrong, I understand that building codes and development processes serve a purpose. They’re there to protect people and the environment. It’s in everyone’s best interest to ensure a deck doesn’t collapse or sewage doesn’t leak, however, not everything is so black and white… or severe. There’s a large gray area, and Nevada County staff holds discretion about how easy or difficult they want to be when enforcing codes or letting you move through the permitting process.
There’s no standard on who gets easy treatment and who gets put through the gauntlet, therefore there’s no accountability.
The County’s Ranch House Project that’s currently being proposed is a perfect example of how Nevada County is abusing its interpretation and enforcement of code. Two previous owners tried to develop this property and were denied permission to do so, and I’ve been keeping an eye on how CDA is handling land use and the interpretation of code for the Ranch House Project now that the County owns this property and is developing it itself.
Zoning: In 2008, Nevada County denied previous landowner Mike Dial’s application and tentative map for subdividing the property into three parcels. The owner prior to Mike Dial, Greg Poppin, also had his application and tentative map for subdividing the property into two parcels denied by Nevada County in the early 2000’s. The proposed Ranch House project on this same property is for six separate residences and an administrative office under one roof. For all intents and purposes this proposed project is a commercial building that will be used as a hotel-like medical facility to house behavioral health clients. How can the County justify building this on RA-1.5 zoning?
Grading Violations: Shortly after Nevada County obtained the property in 2008, they dumped thousands of yards of material in 30’ setbacks over wetlands. This material was placed there “temporarily” with the idea of creating a public works yard for equipment down the road. The material was placed without an approved site map, engineering, compaction reports or regular Building Department inspections as required. A private landowner couldn’t place thousands of yards of material within a 30’ setback permanently, over wetlands, without first having site map approval, engineering, a permit, compaction reports, and inspections.
Wetlands: Previous property owners’ development applications were denied because of the area being recognized as environmentally sensitive wetlands, but now that the County owns the property and wants to develop it they’re minimizing the wetland concerns to move their own projects forward.
Septic: A private landowner with 16-year-old expired perc and mantle tests would likely have to redo the testing and it’s very unlikely they’d be allowed to recertify them for a different use. Septics for single family homes are different from “State Certified” centralized multi-family systems, but the Ranch House Project doesn’t seem to have to follow the County’s own rules and is aiming to simply recertify the expired perc and mantle tests.
Is it really too much to ask for the County to be consistent with how its staff handles privately owned projects versus county owned projects? I recommend they either ease up on the regular Joe homeowner/homebuilder when discretion is called for, or follow their own rules.
How the Board of Supervisors considers the Ranch House Project will tell us how fair and ethical they expect their own departments to act. If they simply rubber stamp the project without carefully considering the issues I’ve listed, then it sets the example that the County doesn’t follow its own rules… which then begs us, the County’s residents, to ask the question, “why then, should we?”
If you find yourself as concerned as I am about the County’s double standards and lack of transparency or accountability, please contact your district’s Supervisor and request they do NOT conditionally approve the Ranch House project for the reasons mentioned above. This topic will be reviewed at the January 24th BOS meeting at 1:30 pm. The BOS agenda is publicly available here: https://bit.ly/BOS-Agenda.
Michael Taylor is a Nevada County resident since 1979.
