Last year a Fort Bragg distiller named John Schnaubelt proposed “an exciting new addition to Noyo Harbor in 2018, Schnaubelt Distillery will be located in the [converted] historic building formerly known as the Noyo Ice House,” basically a clever remodel of an old warehouse which has been abandoned in the Harbor for years.
https://schnaubeltdistillery.com
Schnaubelt and his dad first came up with the idea back in 2012. It’s been in the planning process ever since.
We thought the Schnaubelts should have been encouraged every step of the way, that the Harbor would be a great place for their business. Comprehensive permit details are available on line at the Planning Department’s webpage at mendocinocountyorg which is the County’s planning website because Noyo Harbor is not in the Fort Bragg city limits.
Summary: “The property owner requests a Coastal Development Use Permit to allow five land uses in the Ice House, which is a building located in Noyo Harbor: a distillery with tasting room, office, and storage; fish smoking or processing; boat charter office and ticketing; and storage of fish emulsion and fertilizer … In the Fishing Village District, Coastal-Related Industrial land uses, e.g. storing fish emulsion and fertilizer, would require a Coastal Development Use Permit. The applicant proposes development (a change in building occupancy, a deck, and painting off-street parking spaces…”
Basically, Schnaubelt wants to make “salmon-infused vodka.” (Sounds odd, yes, but we’re told it makes a killer Bloody Mary).
“… the distillery occupies 3,143 square feet of building floor area. In subsequent business years, the property owner intends to make other distillates, including brine-aged whisky…”
“The four businesses proposed for this location are: Wholesaling storage and distribution for Sea Pal Fish Fertilizer; Ticket window for Charter Boat business (Telstar); Fish Smoking; Distillery of Salmon infused vodka and brine aged whisky.”
“… The application proposes ten off-street parking spaces that would be 9 feet x 20 feet…”
Apparently the somewhat cramped lot on which the old warehouse sits doesn’t have quite enough space for the original permit application’s ten parking spaces (including an oversize ADA space) as originally proposed and as called for in the semi-sacred Mendocino County Code.
So the day before the Planning Commission met last Thursday in Ukiah, Mr. Schnaubelt’s planning consultant, Ms. Blair Foster of Wynn Coastal Planning in Fort Bragg, told the Commission they [the applicant] had to eliminate a few spots on the west side of the building “for traffic safety” because the County’s transportation engineers thought those spots encroached a bit on a roadway area.
So Ms. Foster proposed squeezing in some bicycle parking spots as substitutes so that there would be six parking spaces including one ADA space, plus a half dozen bicycle spots as instead of the three former parking spots. She also proposed a “reciprocal agreement” with an agreeable owner of a neighboring vacant lot to the north of the old Ice House site which apparently has room for several dozen parking spots.
Unfortunately, this quite reasonable compromise didn’t go over well with Planning Department planner Juliana Cherry:
“We only got this information yesterday and County Counsel is advising that staff take a deeper look at it and come back to the Planning Commission when we have had time to endorse, so we request the Planning Commission consider continuing the item. … We have directed the applicant to do a parking study. We told him that we would be willing to consider some science behind the demand for parking at the site, maybe using something like the Institute of Transportation Engineers tables for parking for warehouse uses and studies looking at parking next to warehouses because this is mostly a warehouse use. Those kinds of facts could inform deviating from our schedule of parking in our zoning code because our schedule is based on the number of employees within the building. For warehouses it is one per 500 square feet within a building. So there's almost six parking spaces just for the warehouse use and then there are two employees so there ends up being nine or 10 parking spaces being required using our zoning code. We have suggested that they do research and provide some standards like the transportation standards for on-site parking.”
Mr. Schnaubelt had run face-first into The Department of UnReason, the double obfuscators of the Planning and Building Department and the County Counsel's Office.
A couple of Planning Commissioners didn’t like the idea of holding the project up for months to deal with two or three parking spaces. Commissioner Greg Nelson suggested approving the application and dealing with the parking later.
But County Planning Director Nash Gonzales said that his department still has parking “concerns” regarding “adequate parking on site,” which they have to independently establish and that his department could not “segment” the application by separating out the parking for a few weeks later.
Gonzales then suggested a possible variance be considered (although pointing out that he’s never heard of a variance being granted in all the years he’s worked in Mendocino County).
But Ms. Foster said a variance involves considerably more work just to prepare a variance request and a variance application fee and more time.
Gonzales suggested they could get easements with adjacent parcels. But, again, the applicant would have to come back with proposals and applications.
Or maybe Schnaubelt could propose boundary line adjustments to increase the lot size. But that would also require more time, money and paperwork.
All this for basically three parking spaces, mind you.
Planning Commission Chair Molly Warner said she wanted to figure something out and be more flexible using ideas like reciprocal agreements.
Director Gonzales: “Our ordinance is antiquated. It goes back to the 80s. … But we still are dealing with code the way it is. We can look at some alternatives that may work. But the parking has to be adequate. We have to make findings to approve parking. We will look at reciprocal easements. We are all in favor of something that will work, but we need to have a ‘finding’ that parking is adequate.”
Ms. Foster pointed out that anything that went in to the old Ice House building would have a problem meeting current parking requirements unless parking could somehow be allocated nearby, but off-site.
Ultimately the item was postponed to July 19th to allow staff to consider parking alternatives.
Prediction: Mr. Schnaubelt will either pull his application out of utter frustration or the project will be delayed until 2019. Or later.
And some people say enviros and nimbys are what hold up reasonable development in Mendocino County?
Are there any updates to this story? It looks like no progress has been made and no further work has done at the location.
Good question. I have not seen anything official, but that doesn’t mean there are no developments. I would suggest contacting Schnaubelt’s planning consultant on the Coast:
Ms. Blair Foster of Wynn Coastal Planning in Fort Bragg.
Maybe they came to a compromise on the parking, but other things cropped up… As they tend to do when things drag out like this.