Page 16 - Sonoma County Gazette February 2017

My rst weeks in o ce have been quite the whirlwind! I am excited to announce that in our second board meeting of the year, the Board of Supervisors approved an ordinance that will make ADUs -- accessory dwelling units, often called “granny units” -- easier and less expensive
Let’s Love Our Planet!
Besides using your $ to support organizations that work to lower carbon emissions, you can donate money directly to lowering your carbon footprint by opting for Evergreen at Sonoma Clean Power. For less than $18 a month (based on using 510 kWh of electricity), you’ll get 100% renewable energy from the Geysers.
Love EVs (electric vehicles).
In 2014, 26% of all greenhouse gas emission (GHG) were generated by transportation. A Union of Concerned Scientists study in 2015 study found EVs contributed half as much GHG as gasoline cars, including the emissions from manufacturing. Driving a 2016 Nissan Leaf in Santa Rosa is the equivalent of driving a gasoline fueled car getting 97 mpg. Right now get a $500 rebate for a clean driving vehicle – in addition to state and federal tax rebates—from PG&E (SCP customers qualify, too). Go to tinyurl.com/zya99go for more information.
Besides supporting your local economy, you’ll reduce GHG emissions. Our average meal travels 1500 meals to our plate. If own, foods use 50 times the CO2 as those shipped by sea – frequent culprits are asparagus, bell peppers, blackberries, blueberries, cherries, and raspberries.
Love saving water.
to build for the residents of unincorporated Sonoma County. This ordinance is one small step on the long journey towards a ordable housing in our County. It will bring our County code into compliance with recently passed State legislation, and we believe that it will also open up low-impact a ordable housing opportunities for residents.
Love lowering your carbon footprint.
What changes did the new ordinance make? Going forward, ADUs will be allowed with a ministerial permit. A ministerial permit means that the permit is not discretionary. In other words, the County cannot refuse to issue you the permit as long as you meet our criteria. The permit is “by right,” and may not be appealed. Ministerial permits result in a more a ordable and expedited process.
The next question: what are ADUs, and where can they be built? One special type of ADU, Junior Second Units, will be allowed anywhere residential housing exists. Speci cally, you will be allowed to convert a spare bedroom in your home into a “Junior Second Unit” of up to 500 square feet. A Junior Second Unit includes an e ciency kitchen and a separate or shared bathroom. (Please note that ADUs of any form may not be used as vacation rentals.)
Love buying local.
If you are interested in building a traditional, detached ADU, you may go through a streamlined, expedited permitting process if you meet the following criteria.
If you have access to municipal water and sewer, as long as your lot is 5,000 square feet or larger, you may build or repurpose an existing building into an ADU of up to 1,000 square feet.
Water? Yes, we still need to save water and continue practicing water-saving strategies. Yes, the drought is over – for now. But we live in a Mediterranean climate, and our population far outstrips our water resources. That means
that we need to be aware of our climate and what’s appropriate landscaping here. Don’t think the recent heavy rains mean you can replace that old brown lawn with a new one. Instead, explore landscaping with drought resistant and natural plantings. Continue to implement all the water saving strategies at savingwaterpartnership.org/tips/ (Sonoma-Marin Water Saving Partnership). Many communities still o er various rebates for reducing water usage.
If you are on septic and you have a property of two acres or more, you may build an ADU of up to 1,000 square feet. If your property is between 1.5 acres and 2 acres, you may build an ADU of up to 640 square feet. (Please note that ADUs must still meet applicable re and safety and septic requirements. On smaller lots, a potable water requirement also applies.)
I’m pretty darn excited about the new ADU ordinance, and I hope you are, too. But I feel I must devote the majority of this column to the double crest ood event that hit West County hard -- and brought the lower Russian River to 37.8 feet, the highest level in more than a decade.
Statewide about 4% of our electricity use goes to moving water. Locally we use less as our forward thinking Sonoma County Water Agency has worked to ensure that 100% of the electricity it uses is from renewable and carbon free sources, 93% of them here Sonoma County.
When I took o ce on Tuesday, January 3, I thought I would spend my rst weekend as a Supervisor reading and reviewing the 500-page agenda packet for our rst Board Meeting of the year. Mother Nature, however, had other plans.
Love the 4 R’s – Reduce, Reuse, Recycle and ROT!
We talk a lot about Recycling, but increasingly there’s less of a market for recycling. We used to send much of our recycling to China (using fossil fuel to
do so), but now China’s economy’s producing so much stu they have plenty
of their own recycling and don’t want ours. There’re also economic issues with recycling. For instance it costs nearly $4000 to recycle a ton of plastic bags, but
the end result is only worth $32. So what to do? First Reduce what we buy. Ask yourself how much you really need that new whatever AND what will happen
to it when you no longer need it. If you can, try to buy it used at a thrift store
or from Craig’s List, or maybe get it free from freecycle.org – both great options also for disposing of things you no longer need. Reuse or Repurpose things you no longer need; look at liteinitiatives.org/zerowaste for workshops to help you repair items you would otherwise toss out. Recycle whatever is left over that’s not organic in nature. Check out recyclenow.org/recycling/recycling_guide.asp for
a local guide. And lastly, ROT. Composted food waste becomes valuable mulch. Put food waste in in your curbside Green waste bin; guidelines at recyclenow. org/compost/curbside.asp. Want to compost it yourself? Go to dailyacts.org/ diy-guides/ to learn how. You’ll really help the planet; in the US, organic waste
is the second highest component of land lls and the largest source of methane emissions; 30-40% of our food supply is wasted.
Join other folk in a Climate Conversation at the Center for Climate Protection in Santa Rosa at 5:30–6:30 PM on 2/15, 3/15, 4/19, 5/17 or 6/21. Learn what’s happening locally, tour the facility, and nd ways to take action to protect the climate. Refreshments. RSVP to laurie-ann@climateprotection.org.
© Copyright Tish Levee, 2017
Instead of reading an agenda packet, I spent my rst weekend “in o ce” outside of the o ce, reading the Russian River. I spent Saturday and Sunday working with a team of volunteers to evacuate and clear out a homeless encampment that was situated directly in the ood’s path. On Saturday, January 7, Chris Brokate, the volunteers of the Clean River Alliance, and a Supervised Adult Crew removed 10,060 pounds (that’s 5 tons!) of trash from the riverbank. On Sunday, I returned with a skeleton crew of volunteers to make sure that the rest of the homeless residents had evacuated and cleared out their camps.
They hadn’t. It was pouring down rain, and the River was rising approximately one foot per hour. One by one, the trails we’d used to remove trash on Saturday became covered by the River. The campsite quickly became an island. We found ourselves wading knee-deep across a trench, through blackberry brambles and ivy, dragging bundled tarps and plastic bags. We made a bridge out of wooden pallets to get across. We carried out chairs, tents, bicycles, lanterns. Bags of clothes and bedding, food, books, stoves, pots and pans, laundry detergent, batteries.
It’s not easy to get people to trust you enough to help them leave the only home they know in the mist of a rising ood. I am grateful to this day that people ultimately chose to trust us, and that all homeless residents were safely evacuated from the encampment before the River covered the island.
What can you do?
Floods bring people together, and there are many lessons to be learned from the recent ood. But one that feels particularly relevant in today’s political climate is that natural disasters -- and oods in particular -- equalize us. Along the Russian River, we are one watershed. The health of our environment and the health of our people are inextricably intertwined.
16 - www.sonomacountygazette.com - 2/17