To contact us please email us at info@humboldtccrd.org Concerned Citizens for Responsible Development is a coalition of diverse individuals and organizations who deeply care about the future of the unincorporated communities of the Eureka area. We value the high quality of life that we enjoy here and believe that the rural, small-town atmosphere and outstanding natural resources contribute greatly to the livability of our communities in Humboldt County. We seek to preserve the unique character of our communities.
The growth that our unincorporated areas will face in the coming years will forever define the character of our communities. We stand at the critical point where planning and policy decisions made now will significantly shape our future. We must work together to influence the shape of our future.
Our History
We are a small group of individuals who first met at two community meetings held in 2007 by the Forster/Gill (proposed Cutten/Ridgewood Village) developers. At that time approximately 120 concerned residents signed up with their email addresses and/or phone numbers indicating they were interested in a continued effort to keep abreast of development concerns in the area.
As a few of us connected with each other and began to learn more, we realized that there was NO central location to access specific information about what was going on in our own communities!
Each of us, with our own level of expertise and experience, pooled our resources in an attempt to inform ourselves and understand what was happening in our communities. We soon realized that our hours of research and collaboration were not possible for most local residents busy with home, jobs and families. We began to understand that if we were to affect change in our communities, we would need the support of our local communities and its residents, so we looked for ways to inform the general public. We realized that there was a genuine need to provide an avenue for the average citizen to obtain information quickly, concisely and centrally located. The concept of this website was born. It is not professionally done, but we hope it will meet the needs of those who read it.
There are now 15 to 20 of us who meet to share information. WE have taught ourselves how to obtain and interpret state and local government codes, planning regulations, staff reports and Environmental Impact Reports. We have learned about the process of making presentations at Planning Commission meetings and Board of Supervisors meetings to effectively provide community feedback to our elected and appointed officials.
Although our original area of focus was the Cutten/Ridgewood Village development proposed by Forster-Gill, we soon realized there were several other large developments planned from Freshwater to Humboldt Hill. It would seem each development would have a sort of "domino effect" in the development process of our rural community. Each undeveloped area(mostly agriculture or timberland) that is proposed for rezoning in anticipation of future subdivision development, sets a precedent for the next proposed project. Even though it seems this is not the economic climate for immediate building, the developers are setting the stage now so they will have the county government approvals and the necessary requirements met in order to build when the "climate" is more condusive for building.
There is an aggressive push at the State and Local level to develop rural unincorporated areas of our county. There is pressure to add mixed housing to the fringe rural areas of our communities, especially so-called "affordable housing", low income housing, extremely low income housing, apartments, condominiums, townhouses, building lots with "zero" lot lines, etc.All of this requires adding roads/streets, community sewer/water, schools, power, police and fire facilities, all of which will burden the taxpayer now and in the future.
We recognize it will take a concentrated effort from all of us to continually impress upon our elected and appointed officials that the best judge of development in our communities/neighborhoods are the residents/taxpayers who live there! We sincerely hope that those of you who take the time to read this will join us in our efforts to protect and preserve our communities. We need your help! Please contact us at info@humboldtccrd.org
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