Local
jobs and public revenues are being lost due to outdated coastal zoning
designations that prevent the Humboldt Bay Harbor, Recreation & Conservation
District from leasing its property and providing economic development
opportunities for our community. The Harbor District and our leasing agent have
turned away many prospective tenants ranging from manufacturers to wholesale
distributors because of this restriction on land use.
Other
private and public coastal property owners in the City of Eureka and in the
county are being impacted as well. We can’t speak for them, but we know that the
Harbor District is losing out on rental income needed to support the existing
infrastructure because of this barrier; and just as importantly, local residents
are losing out on potential jobs.
We’re
also alarmed at the declining state of many industrial buildings around Humboldt
Bay as they sit vacant. Without tenants to use and maintain them, these
important industrial assets, like the buildings, infrastructure and docks at
former pulp mills, are deteriorating. These buildings and their associated
electric, water, sewer and road infrastructure need to be utilized immediately
or they risk becoming degraded to the point where they cannot be used at
all.
Here’s
the problem. The Harbor District’s 140-plus acres of property on the Samoa
Peninsula are designated “coastal-dependent industrial” (CDI) in the Humboldt
Bay Area Plan. CDI properties can only be used by tenants that directly require
access to the bay, such as fishing, aquaculture, shipping, fuel terminals and
facilities for offshore oil rigs.
Even
uses most would consider CDI compliant such as wood-products manufacturers by
the bay (i.e. pulp and lumber mills) are currently determined to be
non-compliant and thus cannot be sited on CDI land. One local company that manufactures posts for
vineyards wanted to lease from us. Since they only ship by truck, they didn’t
qualify—even though they hope to increase their sales enough to ship by sea in
the future.
The
district supports the goal and intentions behind preserving CDI zoning—to
maintain essential coastal industrial land for shipping and other uses that
require access to the sea. One day, some new type of business we can barely
imagine now—perhaps wave energy generators—will need some of this land, and we
want much of it to remain available for the future.
With
over 1,300 acres of CDI-designated land on Humboldt Bay (compared to 950 acres
for the Port of Oakland), and only about four percent or 50 acres in permitted
use areas, we have a huge surplus of land reserved for coastal-dependent uses.
The City of Eureka recently had an independent market study done which indicated
that less than 10 percent (19 acres) of CDI-designated land in the city would be
needed for coastal-dependent uses in the next 20 years!
Humboldt
County—which has zoning jurisdiction over the Harbor District’s property—is now
evaluating future needs for CDI land, and the next update of the local coastal
plan will likely include proposals to change CDI designations on many parcels to
more general commercial and industrial zoning.
Based
on what we have seen, that process will likely take years.
That
is why the district is seeking the ability to lease some of our CDI land now,
especially our warehouse and shop spaces, to a wider range of industrial or
commercial tenants on an “interim use” basis. We’re advocating for interim use
approval by the County until the updated local coastal plan is amended and
certified by the Coastal Commission.
This
will allow us to rent to a broad range of industrial/manufacturing businesses.
If a coastal-dependent tenant came along later, we’d move the existing tenant to
another site. Coastal-dependent uses will always have priority, and lease terms
will reflect this.
The district has been and continues to be committed to making sure
that enough coastal industrial land remains available for businesses or other
entities that need access to the sea. Given the large amount of coastal
industrial land, buildings, docks and other facilities that are vacant—and have
been for years—we think that granting interim use status to some of this
property is not only prudent, but necessary, for job creation and to avert
losing these assets’ potential for
future CDI use.
