Shacks in the woods
Supervisors split on value of LD dwellings
In September 2011, the Mono County Board of Supervisors began to review Limited Density Owner-Built Rural Dwellings, which fall under the Class K Code folded into the state’s Title 25 Housing and Community Development codes. Its goal was to develop an ordinance to allow LD dwellings in Mono County.
Class K Code is a more lenient building code that relies on the assessment of building department officials, rather than just strict, written code. Drawings and structural analysis aren’t required unless a structure is deemed very complex. Reasonable judgment is used to determine compliance with basic safety and other standards. The code doesn’t, however, allow neglecting any responsibility to national water and power standards.
At the end of that discussion last year, the Supervisors directed County Planning Analyst Brent Calloway to bring back a more refined draft of what the ordinance might look like. At this week’s Board meeting he did just that, but several supervisors didn’t like what they were seeing.
The plan would be to allow a limited number of small, “cabins in the woods” to be built by property owners. Cabins would only be allowed approximately 640 square feet in size.
“What we’re looking at here is something between the Bourne cabin and a hunter’s cabin,” commented Supervisor Byng Hunt. He was referring to the local Bourne family cabin in the Glass Mountains of the Inyo National Forest, which according to many of the supervisors on Tuesday, was one of the reasons why Class K and Title 25 came to light for the county in the first place.
The idea is to help people who want to build a little cabin in the woods, but one of the pitfalls that some supervisors were afraid of falling into was creating a bunch of shacks rather than cabins.
“This whole thing conflicts with itself,” said Supervisor Tim Hansen. “It’s not going to look like Bodie, it’s going to look redneck. To me it makes absolutely no sense.”
Mono County Building Inspector Tom Perry agreed. “It [Class K] flies in the face of what we do. I couldn’t believe what I was reading when this came about.”
In an effort to avoid clumps of shacks, Calloway had several ideas. He suggested that the Board include an automatic sunset in any ordinance. Plus he stated, the Board should come up with some criteria to select the parcels, and proximity to other parcels should be another filter.
Supervisor Hap Hazard agreed. “We don’t want them to look like residential areas.”
Supervisor Hunt’s concern lie in what would happen to the properties if the owners abandoned them. It was suggested that another provision be added to the ordinance stating the responsibility of the homeowner to maintain the structures over time.
“We also need to keep them from becoming party houses or public nuisances,” Hazard pointed out.
Supervisor Vikki Bauer agreed with Hansen that an ordinance of this type was unnecessary and would just create problems.
“There are going to be abandoned little shacks [throughout the county] and the view sheds will be totally affected,” she said. “It’s a bad idea and I don’t want to see it again.”
She and Hansen were outnumbered in their views.
“We have a real need to allow certain exemptions in certain situations,” Hunt said. “I think some form of this should exist.”
“I want to move forward with this,” said Supervisor Larry Johnston. “I think it reflects what we’re about up here; Mono County, Wild by Nature.” He added that at most they were looking at about 100 cabins.
The body voted 3-2 to bring a version of the ordinance back at a future meeting.
“The whole point is our uniqueness,” Hunt concluded.
