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FORESTS
FOREVER ALERTS
11/27/08
SPI SEEKS ZONING CHANGES to ALLOW TIMBERLANDS to BE DEVELOPED
Attorney General’s
Office Weighs In On Disturbing Trend
When California's largest logging company turns
into a real-estate developer the consequences bode ill for the natural
environment.
Even California Attorney General Edmund G. Brown,
Jr., sees the danger to wildlife habitat, timber supplies, and the
global climate in allowing timber companies to rezone their lands
for real-estate development. Thousands of acres of forested land
in the state could be removed from timber production and converted
to other uses, from mining to housing construction, in the process
undermining the state’s climate protection strategies and
degrading watersheds and wildlife habitat.
Fortunately, in at least one case this November,
Brown’s department helped put the brakes on what has become
a disturbing trend. The attorney general deserves credit for his
agency’s action, and encouragement to continue assuring California’s
private forestlands remain forested.
TO TAKE ACTION: Write to Attorney
General Brown and thank him for looking out for the interests of
forests, climate, and wildlife habitat. Urge him to continue pressing
California counties to consider global warming and forest conservation
issues before they allow zoning changes that would permit forest-area
development.
Attorney General Edmund G. Brown, Jr.
Public Inquiry Unit
Office of the Attorney General
P.O. Box 944255
Sacramento, CA 94244-2550
If you want to do more you can mail in comments
on the official General Form for Comments/Questions to the attorney
general. Download the form at: http://ag.ca.gov/contact/generalform.pdf
Also contact your county supervisors and remind
them of their obligation to protect forest resources and the environment
by standing firm against forestland rezoning proposals.
IN DEPTH: In June of this year,
the Sacramento Bee reported, Sierra Pacific Industries
(SPI), California’s largest timber company and land owner,
won approval to rezone as “General Forest” about 5500
acres in Lassen County that had been managed for timber production.
This rezoning was a snapshot of a larger picture
unfolding of a timber company harboring real-estate developer ambitions.
A pattern is emerging as, in county after county,
SPI seeks to have lands now classified as Timberland Production
Zones (TPZs)– areas restricted to timber operations and off-limits
to development– reclassified as General Forest Zones, which
allow for the development of ranches, summer home tracts, mobile
home parks, airports, country clubs, mines, quarries and more.
“The decision by the [Lassen County] supervisors
is the latest action on the Anderson-based timber company's request
to rezone more than 30,000 acres in five Northern California counties,”
reported Bee correspondent Jane Braxton Little.
In September the High Sierra Rural Alliance, a nonprofit
grassroots organization, petitioned Sierra County supervisors to
reverse a recent decision to rezone more than 7000 acres of prime
Sierra timberland owned owned by SPI.
County by county, rezoning conversions are getting
the go-ahead. Even the most active citizen groups are having a tough
time counteracting the trend.
According to the Bee, SPI officials indicated
they have immediate no plans for putting housing on any of the rezoned
lands in Northern California. The company has requested the rezonings
“to increase management options” on properties in the
rural counties.
Something is amiss in the rezoning process. The
apparent pattern of counties rezoning land from timber production
to commercial development is directly at odds with the stated intent
of the California legislature.
The California Timberland Productivity Act of 1982
(CTPA) explicitly seeks to “discourage premature or unnecessary
conversion of timberland to urban and other uses; discourage expansion
of urban services into timberland; and encourage investment in timberlands
based on reasonable expectation of harvest.”
In approving the CTPA, the law that established
TPZ zoning and describes the powers and duties of local government
in protecting timberlands, the legislators made the following finding:
“The state's increasing population threatens
to erode the timberland base and diminish forest resource productivity
through pressures to divert timberland to urban and other uses and
through pressures to restrict or prohibit timber operations when
viewed as being in conflict with non-timberland uses. . . .”
The California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection
(CDF) is on record opposing rezoning. “CDF does not support
moving land from TPZ to zoning classes that may lead to future development,”
the agency announced in January 2007.
“CDF is extremely concerned with the erosion
of the state's timber base and the increased fire hazard from the
future development that is likely to occur on these [rezoned] lands.”
SPI maintains an active real-estate division, and
the company notes that “although our primary interest is timberland
acquisition, other types of lands often come with these purchases.
These properties include parcels of land suitable for residential,
business and recreational development.”
In total, California has 5,418,979 acres of land classified as TPZs
distributed in 32 counties.
According to the CDF, approximately three quarters of California’s
private forestlands are zoned TPZ.
Landowners still pay an annual property tax, but
the assessed value of TPZ land is valued for the cultivation of
timber. This results in a lower tax assessment than customary "highest
and best use" valuation.
On Nov. 3 of this year, Attorney General Brown’s
office weighed in on the controversy with a letter to the Siskiyou
County Planning Department, commenting on SPI’s request for
a zoning change involving 3,846 acres on the southern slope of Mount
Shasta.
“The site’s current habitat supports
hundreds of important Sierra species,” the letter noted. “The
Zone Change will allow a range of potential new uses of the land,
including farm labor housing, single family dwellings, agricultural
uses and elderly housing.” Other uses of the land, dependent
on SPI obtaining a conditional use permit, include “churches,
schools, parks, playgrounds, private airports, dairies, commercial
feedlots, golf courses.
“As a factual matter,” Brown’s
office observed, “it appears that many potential uses that
are likely to have environmental impacts will be allowed without
any further review.
“Of particular interest to the Attorney General,”
the letter continued, “is that the Zone Change makes it more
likely that this approximately 3800 acres of land will move out
of timber production and into another use, resulting in the loss
of forested land in the State. The environmental review document
does not address how this rezoning may affect the net carbon balance
in California. With our increasing awareness of the seriousness
of the problem of climate change, climate protection strategies,
including forest conservation, are acknowledged as being increasingly
important in California. The loss of forest land is the second largest
cause of greenhouse gas emissions globally, and forests are the
most expandable long-term sink for carbon dioxide.”
Brown’s office also addressed a theme apparently
common to all or most of SPI’s requests for zone changes:
the company’s resistance to detailing the purpose for the
rezoning.
A footnote in the Attorney General’s legal
opinion observed that “It does not appear that the applicant
[SPI] has identified or disclosed the purpose and need of this Zone
Change or its intended use of the land after rezoning. Not knowing
the intended use of the land after the Zone Change is approved makes
it difficult for the County to meaningfully evaluate the Zone Change’s
impacts to the environment and leads to our concern that there may
not be sufficient evidence to support the County’s conclusion
that no impacts are anticipated.”
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The Fall 2008 edition of The Watershed
is now online!
Forests Forever’s in-depth newsletter covers
the latest issues affecting California’s forests. Read our
banner story on the good news from the North Coast! Plus catch up
on forest economics for a new millennium, meet a group of Sierra
Nevada citizens challenging clearcuts in their neighborhood, and
read our editorial take on the North Coast forest revolution’s
evolution.
To access a PDF version of the latest issue of The Watershed,
go to:
http://www.forestsforever.org/newsarch08.html
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