Midcoast LCP Update exerpt: Residential Uses in COSC District
TOPIC: RESIDENTIAL USES IN THE COSC DISTRICT
CPR RECOMMENDATION: DO NOT PROHIBIT SINGLE-FAMILY RESIDENCES IN THE COSC DISTRICT
It is difficult to interpret the Planning Commission’s recommendation as proposing anything other than a regulatory taking, that is, a prohibition on land that so significantly and unreasonably limits the use and benefit an owner can derive from his or her property, as to constitute a de facto taking. For that reason it is not surprising that County Planning Staff disagrees with the Planning Commission on this issue: a single-family residence on a COSC parcel provides a level of use, benefit and economic return that far exceeds other permitted uses. It is incontestable that depriving residential use in the COSC would cripple the market value of those properties.
Numerous County and local elected officials have expressed the opinion that the Burnham strip should be publicly-owned land. If the Supervisors were to adopt the PC recommendation, it is foreseeable that a government agency would be tempted to exercise eminent domain on the COSC properties, since they would have been drastically devalued by the prohibition against residential use. In that case, first a property’s market value is slashed by government regulation, then the government seizes the land at its reduced “market value.”
This is not a farfetched scenario. Granada Sanitary District (GSD), which is currently attempting to become a parks/community services special district, with powers of eminent domain, has directors who have long opposed any residential use in COSC lands. Public ownership and use of Burnham strip should be achieved only through government justly compensating willing sellers at full and fair market value.