Letter to the Editor: Over-reaching CAO Buffer Restrictions
Did you know that CAO provisions on Fish and Wildlife Habitat Conservation Areas (FWHCAs) and Wetlands pending before the County Council would declare our entire shoreline to be a “critical” area, and turn shoreline setbacks into “buffers”? Setbacks and buffers are NOT the same. Setbacks govern where structures can be placed, but buffers govern what you are allowed to do on your land. The new restrictions are not limited to shorelines, but also extend buffers around “streams” and wetlands, and will enable the County to regulate almost everything we do in areas of our land declared to be “buffers.”
Why should you need County permission to use your property to:
● Walk your dog or ride your horse?
● Picnic near the shore or by a stream?
● Play softball or Frisbee during a family gathering? (“Hiking” and “birdwatching” are OK.)
● Fly a kite or radio controlled airplane?
Rather than prohibiting only specific activities that are proven harmful to habitat, the proposed CAO allows structures, uses and activities in buffers only if they are specifically listed and approved.
Any activity that is not listed and approved in the regulations is prohibited, unless the owner secures a provisional/conditional use permit or variance, subject to additional requirements imposed by the County.(See Table 3.10 in the FWHCA Section and Table 3.8 of the Wetland Section (current draft at http://bit.ly/OUNN6C).
It may be true that you will be allowed to “keep doing what you’re already doing,” if you can prove, to the satisfaction of the Planning Department, that you have used the area for the specific activity prior to the CAO, that you haven’t abandoned the activity, and the “degree of nonconformity is not increased.”
It is not too late to stop this unwarranted overreaching in the guise of environmental protection. If you value the use of your land and the rural character of our community, call your County Council representatives and attend the Hearing on August 21, 2012.
Tim Blanchard, Orcas
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Such a provision as this of coarse is arbitrary however, no one that can effect a correction seems willing or able to stop it. How can this be?
Well, Tim, no matter what happens, I hope people can’t “keep doing what they’ve been doing” to Eastsound Swale and other important Critical Areas! They’ve just about killed the one Critical Area that our Charter specifically names to protect: “Urban” growth area be d*mned!
That “under one acre” exemption thing has to go. Even so, Eastsound SubArea Plan addressed that. It’s just that CD&P never consulted our Plan, and nothing was ever enforced. So what good is a CAO plan which complicates things even more, with County jobs being cut left and right?
It’s time to responsibly plant our trees back, people.