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Rural Humboldt County residents came down from the hills on Tuesday to urge the Board of Supervisors not to mess with the county’s longstanding Alternative Owner Builder program (AOB), a pared-down home permitting system whose stated goal is to promote low-cost housing and improve permit compliance in areas not served by public water or sewer.

After debating the merits and flaws of the program and hearing from more than a dozen public speakers, all of whom voiced support for it, the board voted 3-2, with supervisors Rex Bohn and Michelle Bushnell dissenting, to continue the matter to an unknown future date, having taken no action to alter the AOB rules. 

While Travis Schneider’s name was not uttered once during today’s proceedings, the local developer’s half-built, permit-violating mansion was referenced obliquely throughout the meeting.

Indeed, Planning and Building Director John Ford acknowledged early in the proceedings that the ongoing controversy surrounding that project led to increased public scrutiny of the AOB program. The question: Given the program’s original purpose, should a rich developer really be allowed to take advantage of these relaxed rules to build a 20,000-square-foot mansion? (Another local business owner, Mackey McCullough, recently used the program to build a 10,000-square-foot home near Berry Summit.)

Ford said the situation with this “one home” has raised “a lot of questions surrounding how the AOB [program] is done, what kinds of inspections are required and really the appropriateness of the ordinance and whether or not it’s been abused.”

The AOB program allows building permits to be active for five years — much longer than the standard one year — and it includes a provision saying that if a home that was built under the program gets sold, the purchaser must either sign an agreement saying they’ll either comply with the terms of the AOB permit or bring the house into compliance with the current building code.

Ford let out a brief sigh. “It’s a little bit embarrassing to say, but in the history of the AOB ordinance, we’re not aware that this has ever been done,” he said.

Of the 628 building permits issued for projects in the county’s unincorporated areas over the past five years, 110  of them — 17.5 percent — were AOB permits. More than half of those 110 homes were under 3,000 square feet, though nine were between 3,000 square feet and 4,000 square feet and eight were larger than 4,000 square feet. 

Staff had prepared a few options to consider. Among them:

• limit the size of homes that can be permitted through the AOB program
• require more inspections
• do away with the AOB program for new construction
• put a moratorium on AOB permits, or
• eliminate the AOB program altogether.

Ford noted that the latter option was not being recommended by staff. 

Bohn said he’d heard an “outpouring of opposition” to nixing or dramatically limiting the program, and he questioned the wisdom of “reacting to one instance” of apparent abuse. Nonetheless, in the interest of compromise, he proposed increasing the number of inspections required for AOB projects and prohibiting people from using the program more than once every five years.

Third District Supervisor Mike Wilson proved to be the biggest advocate for altering the program. He said he has concerns about the disparity between the program’s intent and its application, and he questioned whether it’s an appropriate way to permit homes larger than 3,000 square feet, considering their larger climate impacts.

“Size is important in this discussion, but then also, I think, grading,” he said. “I have heard from contractors that have a lot of concerns about what they’ve seen … . I’ve also heard from tribes about their concerns about the lack of review.” 

Wilson also brought up the matter of county liability, saying the local government is taking on risk by allowing homes to be built without complying to the state’s uniform building code. While the language of the AOB program says the owner-applicant takes on that legal responsibility, Wilson reminded his colleagues that the county has failed to keep tabs on these homes after changes in ownership. 

“It is something we have to concern ourselves with,” he said. “When I say ‘we’ I mean every other citizen in the county ultimately takes on that liability.”

Bohn pushed back, saying he thinks the county’s liability is negligible since there have only been a couple of complaints about the program in recent years. Referring to the Schneider project, Bohn described the situation as “a calamity of errors, misgivings, however you want to look at it that should have never happened.” By and large, the AOB program has been a success, he said.

“The sky isn’t falling because one thing fell out of the sky,” he said, adding that he’d be fine leaving the program as it stands “because I hate knee-jerk reactions.”

Wilson again brought up his concerns over grading and proposed a moratorium on all AOB permits from homes larger than 1,200 square feet, plus limiting the amount of fill that can be brought in — at least until the board could have a longer discussion about protocols. 

“I’m throwing that out there,” he said. “I think that’s reasonable.”

This time it was Second District Supervisor Michelle Bushnell who pushed back. “Your reality isn’t everybody’s … ,” she said to Wilson. “You act like these homes are being built and they’re shambles and shacks, and they’re not. Most of them are not.”

Wilson later objected to this characterization and asked Bushnell not to put words in his mouth. 

The board continued to toss out ideas for tinkering with the program. Fifth District Supervisor Steve Madrone said he has personally taken out two AOB permits over the years, “and I found it to be a really excellent process.” He said many people use the program as a means to reduce permit fees. “I still built to code,” he said before adding that he has also lived in a wickiup. 

Still, Madrone said he’d be fine with placing a moratorium on all AOB permits for homes larger than 3,000 square feet, saying people building houses that large probably have the funds to go through the standard permitting process. He also suggested that building inspectors can do a better job, and he embarked on a bit of a tangent to speak in favor of composting toilets.

During the public comment period, Hydesville resident Mike Gordon called in to say the AOB program “is more vital now than it every has been” and has encouraged “new and innovative ways to reduce our footprint while living holistically off the land.”

Longtime SoHum resident Tom Grover spoke about the history of the back-to-the-land movement, saying people moved up to Humboldt County and built homes with their own ungraded wood and nobody cared in those days. But he said he thinks it’s wrong that the program is being used to permit larger buildings.

Other speakers pointed the finger at Planning and Building Department staff, with one man saying the county’s complex policies are responsible for the region’s housing crisis. 

When the matter came back to the board, Fourth District Supervisor and Chair Virginia Bass noted that time was limited, since she and Bushnell had to leave in the next 15 minutes. (She did not say where they were headed.) Bohn made a motion to keep the AOB program in place while requiring that homes larger than 3,500 square feet “be put under a level of scrutiny that is far beyond what it is now.”

Wilson interrupted Bohn to second his motion. This interjection appeared to be a playful jab directed toward Bushnell, who clearly wanted to second the motion herself, and the supervisors enjoyed a good chuckle. (Bass was the lone exception. “I’m so confused,” she said. “What just happened?”)

But Bushnell said she wanted to “do an amendment,” and the deliberations went in circles for a bit as each supervisor sought to clarify and/or tweak the motion to their own desires. Wilson wound up retracting his second, and Bushnell stepped in with one of her own. 

Ford took some time to defend his staff, saying his department typically responds to requests for inspections and it’s not uncommon for somebody building a house, especially under the AOB program, to not request one. 

“If [the projects] are in an isolated location where we’re not driving by it all the time, we’re not going to see it,” Ford said. “And even if we were to see it, we still need permission to go on the property. … I know a lot of people want to throw the Planning and Building Department under the bus, and we did make mistakes here. The mistakes we made were in permitting, though, not in the inspections.”

With time winding down, Bass said she’d be fine leaving the program as it stands. “It feels like we’re trying to rush this,” she said. In response, Bohn pulled his motion, and Madrone quickly made one to continue the matter to an unspecified future date, and he asked staff to prepare for a discussion of the county’s Safe Home Program at the same time. (That program is aimed at getting unpermitted residential and accessory structures into compliance.)

Bohn and Bushnell said they’d rather just leave the AOB discussion alone for the time being, rather than bringing it up again in the near future, but the rest of the board overruled them. The conversation will resume in the coming weeks or months.