Letter: Property grab by enviros

Editor: Quite clearly the attempt by environmentalists to
establish a 100-foot setback from the top of banks is a taking of
property rights. If the 100-foot setback is enacted, every barn,
garage, house, industrial, commercial and office building and mom
and pop store within that setback, that currently has a legal
conforming status will be re-designated to legal non-conforming
status. What that means is the use can continue. However, every
commercial or industrial building, which includes office buildings
that incur 50 percent or more damage from fire, earthquakes, et al,
would not be permitted to be rebuilt. Would not be permitted to be
rebuilt! If that is not a taking of property rights, then what do
you call that? Residential structures so damaged may be rebuilt on
the original foundation footprint, that is, if the county doesn¹t
decide in the future to include residential structures in the
³would not be permitted to be rebuilt² category. The creekside
setback started out at 30 feet, then in 1989 it went to 50 feet,
now they are trying to impose 100 feet. What will be next ‹ 200
feet, 300 feet? Where will it stop? It won¹t, as long as we give in
to the environmentalists with all of their demands. It makes no
sense at all to have huge setbacks for creeks and streams that have
very little water in them most of the year. The ability to
refinance or sell a legal, non-conforming structure may be
difficult at best. It is time to stand up to the environmentalists
and just say no!
Mike Bojanowski, Healdsburg