The Mendocino County Coastal Permit Administrator on Oct. 9 adopted the mitigated negative declaration (state clearinghouse No. 2025081336) and approved coastal development permit CDP2023-0012 for Mark and Kathleen Boley to construct additions to a single-family residence at 45175 Fern Drive in Mendocino.
The project would add a bathroom, deck, porch, entry gates, a hot tub slab, landscaping walls, and reconfigure parking and the entry stairway. Work also includes driveway and drainage improvements near a seasonal creek that crosses the property. The parcel is approximately 0.6 acre with zoning and general plan designations of rural residential and is located about 1.8 miles north of the town of Mendocino.
Planner Jesse Waldman summarized project constraints and agency comments, saying the site is within 100 feet of an identified environmentally sensitive habitat area (ESHA) and that CDFW raised concerns about protecting waterways. Waldman noted that the project is proposed to be constructed in accordance with best management practices and that avoidance measures and seasonal work windows are included in conditions 16–18. “If that was a separate scope of work because it's not in the right of way, that that may require a grading permit with the building department,” Waldman said when explaining how encroachment-permit work in the county right of way differs from grading that occurs off the right of way.
Agent Deborah Lennox thanked staff for following up on agency comments and coordinating the CDFW site visit. She told the administrator that the owners intend to begin driveway work in spring due to seasonal mitigation windows and asked whether beginning work under an encroachment permit would vest the CDP. Waldman and the administrator answered that vesting depends on the scope of the work and that driveway improvements alone often are not sufficient to vest a coastal permit; staff typically looks for additional work authorized by the permit to demonstrate vesting and will continue the conversation with the applicant after the hearing.
The administrator also noted a small edit to finding 4 in the staff report to insert the state clearinghouse number for the mitigated negative declaration and then adopted the MND and approved the project subject to the findings and conditions in the staff report. Staff recorded that no public comments had been received on the project.
The county’s conditions require best management practices, avoidance measures for work within the seasonal dry window, and an encroachment permit from the Mendocino County Department of Transportation if improvements occur in the right of way. The transcript records that the driveway and drainage improvements include junction boxes and reorientation of a septic tank to accommodate the proposed deck entrance; details and required permits will be clarified with staff before construction.