May 05, 2022
April 11, 2022
April 01, 2022
March 30, 2022
San Gregorio Beach Cleanup Sat. April 23rd
Saturday, April 23rd is Earth Day cleanup at San Gregorio State Beach from 9-11am. Join your friends and neighbors, bring your kids, and play a part in keeping our beautiful area beautiful! Parking is free for volunteers. Bring your own bucket, reusable gloves, and sturdy shoes for a fun day at the beach. Dress in layers as it can be chilly but bring sunglasses and sunscreen just in case! The San Gregorio Environmental Resource Center (SGERC) sponsors this event as part of the Adopt-A-Beach program, and will have extra garbage bags and gloves for anyone who needs them. We’ll sort recyclables from the trash and properly dispose of everything.
This is a fun event for the whole family, and you’ll find that cleaning up the beach and the picnic and parking areas provides instant gratification. You’ll also learn valuable and potentially life-saving information about beach safety. SGERC, in partnership with State Parks, holds cleanup events each year in April, July and September as part of the Adopt-A-Beach and Coastal Cleanup Day programs. Please join us this April!
March 09, 2022
February 27, 2022
Local Music Survives the Pandemic
Neil and Friends at San Gregorio
In the last twenty six months there have been many casualties due to the pandemic. The music industry is one that has been hammered hard. Festivals being cancelled, venues going out of business, tours cancelled leaving musicians trying to reinvent how to do their music during these tough times. Our local music venues went the first year with no live music but as things drug on we started seeing these venues figure out how to create environments where bands could play and people could safely gather. Alice’s Restaurant opened up their back lawn area for the summer and fall and then moved the music to their front porch with canopies and heaters. San Gregorio Store created an area in the front of the store where people could safely gather. Loma Mar Store has been doing live music for a couple of months now. Applejacks has a great new area in their back yard with a beautiful new stage and has been hosting great events there. Unfortunately it was 37 degrees for their outdoor New Years Eve show. Many thanks to the Kerr brothers, George at the Store, Jeff and Kate at Loma Mar Store and Joe at Apple Jacks for making it possible for our local musicians to be able to gig.
Through all this the musicians have had to rethink how to get their music out especially the first year of the pandemic. Some have spent time in their studios recording and some have started using social media to get their music out there. One of our local musical icons Neil Panton has figure out a couple of ways to stay involved in the local music scene through all of this. Besides sitting in with a few of the local bands when he can, he has a couple of other unique projects going. First Neil is producing a show for local Pescadero radio station KPDO featuring the music of our local area. The Music of South San Mateo County is on the air every day for an hour at 3pm and 9pm. You can live stream at kpdo.net or listen over the air at 89.3. Most of his previous shows can be accessed from the archives. Also, Neil in conjunction with the San Gregorio Store is hosting a show the first Sunday of each month at 11am. Neil will be inviting other local musicians to sit in with him. He is keeping it fairly low key with a more acoustic feel. Last show was David Barrow with Devon Shane Baker and Jody Lamb. The weather was great and the show was well attended. The music as expected was awesome. On March 6th Neil will be joined by Johnny Hamilton and Terry Hiatt. Not a bad way to spend a Sunday listening to the best of local music and hanging out with neighbors and friends. Thanks to all the people who did mask up and socially distance so these events could happen safely.
February 04, 2022
January 10, 2022
December 03, 2021
November 30, 2021
Affordable Housing in La Honda?
The lack of affordable housing in our area is apparent even if if you have not tried to buy or rent in recent years. We used to think the commute from La Honda over the hill was far (but worth it!) but nowadays you might even work with someone who commutes daily to the Bay Area from the Central Valley. Maybe your children have had to move to another state to afford their own home. Accessory Dwelling Units (ADUs) may provide some relief to our housing crunch. The California Health and Safety Code now “requires that cities and counties develop a plan that incentivizes and promotes the creation of ADUs that can be offered at affordable rent for very-low to moderate-income households.” Locally the ADUs are allowed in our unincorporated area on R-1 zoned properties.
This link will take you to the California Housing and Development page with all sorts of information from the viewpoint of the State of California, including a handbook with frequently asked questions.
Although they may be labeled with other names in other areas, San Mateo County is using the term ADU or Accessory Dwelling Unit for these small units. They range from a detached “granny unit” to a section of your existing home with its own entrance and sleeping and cooking areas. (Please note, the units are not to be used for B&B type rentals.) If you are building a new home, you can also include and ADU in the construction plan.
This link will take you to a short list of the standards required in San Mateo County.
The state mandate has brought about the relaxing of some requirements for building an additional unit on your lot in a city or unincorporated residential area (as in the case of La Honda and other Coastside communities). So don’t discount the program if you had looked into it previously and were told you could not build. it is interesting to note that at this writing, notification of your neighbors during the permitting process is not required, although it is recommended as the neighborly thing to do.
The San Mateo County Ordinance can be viewed or downloaded here.
The program is still so new that it might take a little digging to find the specific information you require. But there is plenty of help out there to get your project underway, including fast tracking of permits, and grants in some cases to help with the fees involved.
A good starting point might be the Second Unit Resources Center for San Mateo County, You will find links to resources and even a calculator to help you with an idea of the cost.
If you do a web search on "ADU" and "San Mateo County" you will find many links to private companies who want to "help" you on your ADU journey!
And for those who may have an unpermitted additional living space, you should check out the San Mateo County Second Unit Amnesty Program:
While most accessory dwelling units in the County are built with all required permits and approvals, there are also some units that have been constructed without following the required procedures. Some of these units may be safe and fully habitable, and simply did not receive proper permits; in other cases, the standards of construction may not meet code requirements, and may present health and safety issues to residents and adjacent properties. The Accessory Dwelling Unit Amnesty program is intended to provide a low-cost, penalty-free pathway to improve all unpermitted accessory dewlling units to a safe and habitable condition, without requiring removal of the units or displacement of any residents.
Check out the amnesty program here!
Good luck if you choose to investigate a second unit. There's lots of help out there!
Recent Posts
- 2023 La Honda Fair schedule
- The May 2022 Edition of the La Honda Voice
- The April 2022 Edition of the La Honda Voice
- Here is the Special April 2022 Apocalytic Edition :)
- San Gregorio Beach Cleanup Sat. April 23rd
- The March 2022 Edition of the La Honda Voice
- Local Music Survives the Pandemic
- The February 2022 Edition of the La Honda Voice
- The January 2022 Edition of the La Honda Voice