Shooting From The Hip Camp

It’s understandable that the Mendocino County Planning Commission had trouble coming up with even a draft of a regulatory framework for “Transient Habitation — Low Intensity Camping,” aka “Hip Camps” and the like. The complexity, controversy, and range of issues to be addressed probably exceeds even what cannabis regulation involves. At their last meeting on the subject, they voted 3-2 against a preliminary recommendation. But issues like this are what the Planning Commission is for. Instead of becoming a shadow Planning Commission, the Supervisors should send the issue back with a few comments and tell the planners to do their job and recommend a draft (or two) for the Board to consider.

Last Tuesday Planning Director Julia Krog, apparently giving up on the Planning Commission, suggested that the Board develop a zoning matrix approach with various hip camp permit conditions for each zoning category. It’s not a bad idea, but it’s not something the Supervisors should prepare. Krog walked the supervisors through a few of the issues and got some preliminary opinions from Board members and the public.

Nobody seems to know how many so-called “hip camps“ are already in Mendocino County. A preliminary review of the hipcamp website indicates that there may only be a few dozen formally registered hip camp hosts in Mendocino County. But others say that there may be 500 or more. There are even people who say there may be as many as 1000 to 1500. It probably depends on your definition of a hipcamp. The hipcamp website says hipcamps include “tent camping, RV parks, cabins, treehouses, and glamping.” One assumes that homeless camps, and friends visiting for few days are not “hipcamps” because those are not commercial transactions.

According to the County presser for Tuesday’s agenda, the proposed “new use type of Transient Habitation — Low Intensity Camping. would allow for a limited number of short-term commercial campsites.”

A limited number. Right. Ms. Krog didn’t ask what Board members thought about that or how it would be capped.

According to an on-line definition, “low intensity” or “low impact” camping means that there’s no indication that camping had taken place after the campers are gone.

Ms. Krog’s attempt to elicit input from the Supervisors was, as might be expected, um, well… incomplete.

For example, nobody seemed to have read the Hipcamp regulation example from San Benito County that Director Krog included in the agenda package because a number of the issues in that county’s approach were not raised during the board discussion. According to the board’s self-congratulatory Wednesday press release, the Board “directed the Planning Department to get various public input on the subject and come back to the board at a later date.”

What they should have done was direct the Planning Department to go back to the Planning Commission and take another shot at a draft regulation.

Unfortunately, the Board loves diving into the weeds, arrogantly preferring micromanaging to avoid controversy. They shouldn’t allow themselves to be drawn into this position. Instead they should refer the question back to the Planning Department and Planning Commission where it rightly belongs. This same fundamental error was made during the pot regulation days when the board assumed a planning role for something they know very little about. The predictable result was a crazy quilt/major failure which has taken years of time, money and contention to iron out and is still unfinished.

Here’s what the San Benito County Hip Camp ordinance says:

“25.08.031 Low Impact Camping

This section refers to uses classified as Low Impact Camping as described in Chapter 25.09. Such uses are subject to the regulations below. This includes tent camping, glamping, dry RV camping, yurts, or something similar.

A. Location and Site Regulations

In accordance with Table 25.03-B of this Title, Low Impact Camping is permitted in the AR, AP, R,

RR, and RT zones subject to the following:

Acreage requirements per Accessor Parcel Number (APN)

a. One (1) campsite per acre up to nine (9) campsites

No more than 6 (six) campers permitted per campsite.

Campsites shall be setback a minimum of one hundred (100) feet from property lines.

The property owner shall maintain sanitation facilities that are fully self-contained or connected to a permitted sewage disposal system serving the property. At least one (1) ADA restroom shall be required. All solid waste shall be removed from the premises after each occupancy, and onsite trash receptacles shall abide by applicable animal-protection trash best practices or requirements.

No on-street parking shall be permitted in connection with a Low Impact Camping site.

Operational Regulations

All Low Impact Camping areas shall be operated in the following manner:

Temporary Sleeping Accommodation Only

No temporary sleeping accommodation shall be used for permanent human occupancy.

Temporary sleeping accommodations shall not exceed fourteen (14) consecutive nights per camper.

Noise

All low Impact Camping Facilities shall comply with Chapter 19.39 – Noise Control Regulations of the San Benito Municipal Code. Specifically, no amplified sound equipment or live music shall be permitted between the hours of 10:00 p.m. and 7:00 a.m.

On-Site Manager

A designated on-site operator or manager shall be available by phone twenty-four (24) hours per day, seven (7) days per week.

Communal/Recreational Fire Pits

There can be only (1) communal wood burning fire pit per parcel and it shall be operated by the site manager or property owner. The site manager or property owner shall take all necessary training for the Fire Department or CalFire to operate.

Communal and recreational fires and fire pits shall comply with the following:

Recreational fires are not to be wider than three (3) feet in diameter and two (2) feet in height.

Recreational fires shall not be conducted within twenty-five (25) feet of a structure or combustible materials.

Open burning, bonfires or recreational fires shall be constantly attended until the fire is extinguished. A minimum of one portable fire extinguisher with a minimum 4-A rating or other approved on-site fire-extinguishing equipment, such as dirt, sand, water barrel, garden hose or water truck, shall be available for immediate utilization.

Portable outdoor fireplaces and barbeques shall be used in accordance with the manufacturer’s instructions and shall not be operated within fifteen (15) feet of a structure or combustible materials.

The business license holder shall obtain and maintain in good standing a certificate issued from the Tax Collector /Auditors Office for Transient Occupancy Tax (TOT), whether the business license holder collects TOT directly or through a third-party platform.”

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As is obvious, enforcing such detailed requirements in a county the size of Mendocino would be a challenge, to say the least.

Also left unaddressed were questions of how much hipcamp use permits would cost.

Ms. Krog noted that “camp sites require adequate water supply, sewage disposal and solid waste disposal and oversight for the health and safety of those camping. Additional operational requirements to speak to these issues were requested, and therefore additional time is necessary to develop solutions and hear public comment.”

Lee Howard of Ukiah made the most blunt, if somewhat disjointed, comments. Nevertheless, his and similar comments need to be addressed in whatever hipcamp rules are prepared.

“Health and safety should be number one — paramount,” insisted Howard. Then, referring to a complaint he filed back in 2001 — apparently the hip camping has been going on far longer than we thought — Howard said that his complaint was “never taken care of,” adding that, “They couldn’t even find it [the camp]. You’re telling me that you’re gonna go out there when you’ve got, what?, 500, or so campsites? You don’t know where they are! You can’t even find them when you’re told where they are!”

In other words, how will rules be enforced if law enforcement or code enforcement can’t even find the campsites?

Howard also said that annual inspections should be required, but by whom? “Many of the campsites are in Calfire resource lands. Is Calfire going to inspect the sites for road and fire safety? Has Calfire even been consulted?”

Referring to his own experience with campers, Howard said that he had sent pictures of a problematic neighboring campsite with an outhouse to the County. “They were camping in waist high dry grass,” said Howard. “They need fire tools, more than just a fire extinguisher.”

Howard said that campers “drive through my place, They have to stop at my gate and I to get to talk to some of them. They’re from Texas, Arizona, New Mexico — all over the country. They don’t have a clue what fire in timberland looks like. I don’t want my place burned down.”

“They go through almost 3,000 feet of road on my place. Do the campsite hosts have any responsibility for that road? It’s a private easement for ingress and egress and they have turned it into a public commercial easement.”

“Road standards?,” Howard went on, “They need to meet CDF road standards. Period! No question! Turnouts. Everything, the whole nine yards.”

Sheriff Kendall has yet to be heard from. The private road question has not been answered. Local fire departments have yet to be heard from. Code enforcement has yet to be heard from. The existing conventional campground operators — all of whom must pay transient occupancy taxes — have yet to be heard from. This is all stuff that should be addressed by the Planning Commission and only then sent to the Board when the issues have been hashed out.

It’s one thing for a neighbor to invite some friends to camp out for a few days. But turning such activities into an ongoing commercial business with comprehensive regulation of random outsiders is far from simple. The Board has been evading the ever-worsening AirBnB issue for years. Now they’re supposed to solve the hip camp problem?

The issue should be referred back to the Planning Commission for serious deliberation and a formal recommendation — not casually bandied about by ill-informed and inexperienced supervisors.