I found Liza Michaelson’s letter (Don’t Water Down CAO Protections, Dec. 30 2011) – which argues that San Juan County needs to “make global headlines” by enacting a CAO “extreme” in its protections – appalling in its ignorance of the facts and the law relevant to the question of whether our county ordinances require radical change in order to protect our critical areas.
Ms. Michaelson acknowledges the “striking” and “pristine” beauty of our islands, which in itself suggests that the stewardship and generosity of our citizens, together with the existing critical areas regulations, have accomplished exactly what is required to maintain those pristine conditions. Nevertheless, she concludes that we need new, “extreme” rules to protect our critical areas.
There are two very fundamental problems with Ms. Michaelson’s position. First, no one has shown that our current CAO rules do not adequately protect the functions and values of our critical areas. Absent such a showing, there is no legal (or rational) basis for changing them. Second, a substantial number of the privately owned parcels in the county (I have heard estimates approaching 50 percent) are undeveloped. The proposed changes, which do not “water down” the existing CAO but substantially increase its burdens, would keep many, if not most, of them from being “developed” (i.e., having a home built on them). Ms. Michaelson seems untroubled that the owners of these parcels could not build the homes (or barns, or gardens, or orchards) for which they bought the parcels in the first place.
Happily, the Constitution protects those hapless folks. The county either must show a rational relationship between these new restrictions and threatened harm to critical areas, or pay the owners for the loss of use of their land. I am not sure which is more troubling: the financial exposure of the county if it takes this ill-considered course and renders unbuildable such a large portion of the county or what it says about how we are willing to treat our neighbors, i.e., “We’re here, we have our homes and barns and docks, now pull up the drawbridge and keep all those other people from building homes.”
We are still waiting for science-based, specific indications of harm currently being done to the functions and values of our existing critical areas. The County Council promised us proof. The bureaucrats promised us proof. The well-compensated consultants promised us proof. One year later, we have been given none.
Peg Manning
Orcas
