Landowner Issues

Humboldt County is actively working to diminish the historic traditional uses and property values many rural landowners thought came with the property rights inherent to legally recognized parcels. The actions of the County are coming from a variety of fronts, including:

General Plan Update

1. Increasing various agricultural zonings to 600-acre minimum parcel sizes.
2. Increasing TPZ zoning to 600-acre minimum parcel sizes.
3. Conditional use permits – making building permits for development (i.e. residences) on parcels subject to a discretionary conditional use permit. Action on Conditional Use Permits are subject to CEQA, which opens the door to public comment, cost-prohibitive conditions of approval and introduces the potential of an Environmental Impact Review process.

                       
Patent Parcels
Patents and parcels that pre-existed before certain dates recognized by the Subdivision Map Act and some zoning laws are looked at by Staff as ones that evolved by utilizing “loopholes” in the law. As such, they claim they need to be eliminated. 

Outside of the Subdivision Map Act and other codes and statutes, Staff is redefining terms and making new determinations of applicant “true” intent based on their re-interpretations of the law. These changes could dramatically affect the value of your property.

Assessor – the Assessor has undertaken a program to refuse to recognize many TPZ patent parcels, those that pre-existed subdivision laws, by re-defining “legal parcel” to mean a “parcel with an Assessor Parcel Number”(APN).  The Assessor views the issuance of a new APN to these pre-existing parcels as “creating” a new parcel, and is attempting to treat them as if they are the result of a “subdivision.”  These definitions appear to be in direct contradiction to the Subdivision Map Act and other codes and statutes. As such, the Assessor is refusing to issue new APN numbers.

County Counsel – the County counsel has participated in “redefining” many terms Staff is utilizing in their current actions. Rather than reaching out to affected stakeholders to explain these new “definitions,” Counsel is instead sending the message that landowners who don’t like the definitions will just have to file a lawsuit.

The above actions by County staff are and will continue to have significant impact on the rights normally associated with property ownership. Areas affected may include:

1. Estate planning efforts
2. Reduced / eliminated borrowing opportunities
3. Sale opportunities
4. Property devaluation
5. Lost opportunities for children to establish homes on family land
6. Lost opportunity for someone to enter into agricultural endeavors (which is counter to what staff says their goal IS in the first place!!)

Now is the time for property owners to speak up!