CPA approves Point Arena house with public-access easement and conditions on buffer and landscaping

The Mendocino County Coastal Permit Administrator on April 10 approved Coastal Development Permit CDP 2024-0026 for Mitchell and Anna Heller to gravel an existing driveway and construct a 2,760-square-foot single-family residence with a 599-square-foot attached garage and workshop, sauna, well and associated septic, a well storage tank and other ancillary structures at 27232 Warren Drive in Point Arena. The approval includes conditions addressing sensitive habitat buffers and a proposed public-access easement for a segment of the California Coastal Trail.

Shelby Miller, project planner, said the property has a previously approved categorical exclusion for a test well (1995) and that the project generally complies with the county general plan and rural residential zoning. Miller said a public-access easement on the property, accepted by the Moat Creek Managing Agency in 1999, runs roughly 10 feet from the existing bluff edge and forms part of the California Coastal Trail. The State Coastal Conservancy recommended the applicant record an ambulatory easement for the coastal trail.

Miller said the California Department of Fish and Wildlife (DFW) reviewed the project and noted that portions of the septic system or leach field would be within a 100-foot buffer of a Northern Bishop Pine Forest, a sensitive natural community treated as environmentally sensitive habitat under the local coastal program. DFW concurred with a proposed buffer reduction only if its recommendations from a biological scoping report by WRA are incorporated into permit conditions. Those recommendations, Miller said, include removal and control of nonnative invasive species for at least five years, use of only native and regionally appropriate landscaping species, limiting burn activities in development areas to avoid impacts to regeneration, and installation of low symbolic fencing near the development edge to reduce future encroachment into the buffer.

Miller also said the Coastal Commission provided comments recommending removal of authorization for installation of the proposed secondary leach field, conditioning the permit to prevent introduction or spread of invasive species (for example, equipment cleaning and use of certified weed-free mulch), limiting landscaping to native regionally appropriate species, and working with the applicant to secure an ambulatory easement for the coastal trail. Miller noted that staff prepared two memos to clarify the applicant’s proposed offer to dedicate public access and to add a previously omitted propane tank to the project description; she said the memos and recommended conditions other than the ambulatory-easement language had been incorporated into the conditions of approval.

Owner Mitchell Heller said he supports public access and that the project will “promote native species and be appropriate to the place where it's being built.” Donald McMullen, agent for the applicant, said he had no further comments beyond correspondence he had already submitted to staff and confirmed the applicant's agreement with the memos.

The Coastal Permit Administrator directed staff to consolidate the two memos into a single final memo (noting that one version omitted condition G and the later version omitted that authorization) and approved the project subject to the modified findings and conditions reflected in the most recent staff memo.

The approval requires compliance with the DFW recommendations and the staff conditions; it also reflects agency input from the State Coastal Conservancy and the Coastal Commission. No members of the public spoke on the item at the hearing.