08/19/2005: "Prosecutor and Commissioner Torpedo an Island Tradition"

Over the years, countless islanders have lived in a small cabin, garage, or "guesthouse" on their land while they built their final home. For some, it was economic necessity; living modestly and building in stages, was how they were able to afford to provide a home and future for their families. For others, the cabin or "guesthouse" was a vacation home they used until they retired and built their permanent home when they moved to the islands full time.

Recent rulings (RELATED STORY ) by the Democrat Prosecuting Attorney, Randy Gaylord, our two remaining Democrat Commissioners, Alan Lichter and Kevin Ranker along with the Permit and Planning Department have thrown this island tradition to the wolves. The situation today is that if you have a "habitable house" on your property, regardless of its size, use, or condition, you cannot get a permit to build your permanent home…end of story.

The current collective County brain trust will not even accept a provision on the building permit that you will remove the kitchen from the existing home (thus leaving you with one remaining home on the parcel) when you get your final occupancy permit for the main house. If you own a piece of land and are living on it, the only way you can get a permit is to decommission the existing house, move somewhere else and then apply for the permit to build your main house on your property. Just when some of us thought things couldn't get any nuttier.

The Friends of the San Juan's anti-guesthouse appeals to the Growth Hearings Board started all this mess. But even this myopic group doesn't believe that this current interpretation of the Growth Hearings Board ruling is correct. The Prosecutor and the Commissioners are trying to blame the Growth Hearings Board. No one is buying it.

We have gone from losing the ability to build a guesthouse (something San Juan County voters last November supported by 73%), to not even being able to live on your land while building your permanent residence. It goes to show that even the low expectations some have held for this current group of County officials has over-shot the mark.

Next time the two remaining Democrat Commissioners and the Democrat Prosecutor start shedding crocodile tears pretending to be concerned about the inability of working families to build and own a home in the islands, (and then advocate yet another new excise tax on property owners for "affordable homes"), speak up and remind them of this latest bit of stupidity.

It is a combination of things, the latest goofy ruling, raising permit fees, the slow and unpredictable processing of permits, the expanding and expensive new regulations, the layer upon layer of reports and studies required of hopeful homebuilders, restrictions on available land to build homes, and competition for available land from the Land Bank and other public and non-profit entities that are the true reason our homes are becoming so expensive. Government is causing this mess. As citizens, we need to demand our elected representatives fix it! Next time you see them around town, tell them pay attention, get involved and to do their job! Our elected officials should be the solution, not the problem.

John Evans