The Humboldt County Planning Commission is rolling up its sleeves on a considerable chunk of work – the Humboldt Bay Area Plan – and how to handle port terminal uses is an early focus of discussion.The extent of restricting heavy lift marine terminals – which will be necessary for wind energy but could also be used for other industrial purposes – was weighed as the commission held a June 16 workshop on the plan.During a public comment period, Jen Kalt of Humboldt Waterkeeper voiced support for the plan’s disallowance of support facilities for oil and gas drilling in a port overlay zone.The port overlay is a separate, higher-level policy project and at this point it includes facilities for offshore wind energy as well as “other permitted heavy lift port operations.”Waterkeeper is warning against the “other” operations part.“We’re really concerned that closing the door on one really heavy industrial extractive industry that would be devastating to the bay and our coast would just be replaced potentially with another one,” Kalt said.She added the plan can be changed in the future and “there’s really no reason to open the door to this kind of use right now.”Justin Mojonnier of Hog Island Oyster Company asked for “coastal food production overlays” on industrially-zoned land to protect the aquaculture industry.“I urge the county to continue to support sustainable industries like aquaculture instead of chasing large industrialized dreams,” he said.Much of the commissioners’ discussion focused on whether the heavy lift terminal policy should only allow support for wind energy.Some commissioners were reluctant to keep it that narrow.“They used to make ships here, so if they decided to make ships here again, they wouldn’t be able to do it because we took that out,” said Commissioner Peggy O’Neill on the allowance for other uses.Commissioner Noah Levy said the narrow focus is useful to “signal that we don’t want this to be used for a major cargo shipping facility.”But there was pushback on that from Commissioner Todd Fulton. “We’re dying for jobs,” he said. “Yes, it’s a very sensitive bay, I’m with you on that, but I’m not comfortable restraining ourselves from anything done in the future.”After more discussion, commissioners agreed to revisit the policy language later.Another topic under debate is high density housing of more than 30 units per acre.Keep Reading
