Community battles over wetlands

Some people say they would like to see the project scaled down, and others would like the development at another location away from the park altogether. The main environmental concerns have to do with run-off from the parking lot, light and noise from the area, and the general incompatibility of an office building on park land.

"I have been very concerned that we as a city take care of our environment," said Kelly Moran, a resident and visitor of the park. "I'm concerned that the office building is not compatible with the park-it doesn't make any sense."

At the meeting, Moran said that less than 1 percent of San Mateo's wetlands are left. "The city's efforts are more important here than in other areas," Moran said about the need for the city of San Mateo to preserve the land instead of allowing it to be developed.

The developers, Pacific Bay Homes, have owned the land for thirty years, and have only in the past few years decided to make the move to develop it. City officials and many from the public agree that the developers are being cooperative in revising their plans to fit the site and address environmental concerns. The site will have a state of the art bioswale basin that will capture run-off from the parking lot and Third Ave., which will use vegetation to filter out the pollutants before it reaches the lagoon. They have agreed to pay $114,000 to the city's wetland enhancement fund, and have agreed to replace three times the amount of wetlands lost from their development at another site- although this will only total .6 acres. They are willing to share parking space with the nearby park's lot.

And last night they even seemed willing to change some of their landscaping designs to accommodate more plants native to the bayshore.

"It will be a net benefit to the area," said Scott Goldie, vice president Pacific Bay Homes.

Opponents from the public disagree, and Park and Recreation Commission members also raised their eyebrows.

One of the biggest bones of contention has where the replacement wetlands will be. The city does not want to give up the remainder of the Shoreline Wetlands as possible mitigation land to the developer, because they anticipate needed it for mitigation for other city development sites. There's not much land left over. The idea was toyed with last night of filling in part of Bay Marshes to create more wetlands. But the most likely possibility would be to develop wetlands on a site in Redwood City.

"The off-site mitigation needs to be alongside the San Mateo shoreline area," said Robin Smith, a resident. Because there is so little wetlands left in San Mateo, any loss of more would jeopardize the the existence of what's there.

And then there's the issue of the environmental impact report. As it stands, there will be none. The planning commission decided that there was no substantial evidence that the project would have an environmental impact. Instead, the commission had an independent consultant do a wetlands analysis on the property, and took those conclusions into consideration.

Commissioning an EIR is one of the things opponents to the project want to not only gain a more extensive review of the development that would have significant public input, but also to buy some time- at least until the Shoreline Park Master Plan is complete and the city will know better how the office building would fit into the plans for the park.

The Park and Recreation commissioners weighed both sides of the debate heavily. Commissioner Gary Parma seemed to have the most concerns.

"That's our only concern here as commissioners is that we should be concerned with Tidelands Park. I know the developer has every right to develop their property," said Parma. He criticized the architectural and landscape designs as fitting in well with the park, and said that although the project was "class A." it did not seem appropriate for the park.

Commissioner Craig Faries sided closer with the developer. "It seems like it would be an improvement over what is there naturally. Overall it would be satisfactory," he said.

And Commissioner Jonathan Bookspur weighed in by saying that of coarse it would be better if nothing was going to be built there, but the development could be worse.

"The reality is, it's going to have a significant impact," he said. "We can try to buy [the land]-if we can't, I think they've come close to doing everything they can do to develop the site on a sensitive area."

The city council will get the Park and Recreation Commission's final recommendations and will decide to either approve the development or require additional changes at their October 16 meeting.