Calaveras County Municipal Code § 17.10.050 Required findings

The purpose of the environmental protection (EP) overlay zone is to identify what protective measures may be necessary before new development can be approved on parcels or portions of parcels previously identified by the county as environmentally sensitive or flood-prone in environmental documents prepared by the county to comply with the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) and/or the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA).

The EP overlay zone may only be applied to areas previously identified as environmentally sensitive through a site-specific discretionary approval process or legislative action.

An environmental protection (EP) overlay zone shall be noted on the zoning map by adding the designation "-EP" to the base zone.

No use of land, development, or ground disturbance shall occur within the EP overlay zone except as follows.

A. All use, development, and disturbance of land within the EP overlay zone shall be designed and sited to avoid disruption or degradation of the resource identified for environmental protection.

B. All use, development, and disturbance of land within the EP overlay zone shall be consistent with all mitigation or resource protection plans previously prepared for the area. If no such plan exists, a resource protection plan shall be prepared by the applicant and approved by the reviewing department based on a site-specific assessment prepared by a qualified professional expert in the relevant field(s) that contains the following:

1. An evaluation of the impact the use, development, or disturbance may have on the floodplain, inundation area, habitat, cultural resource, or other reason for application of the EP overlay zone and whether the proposed use, development, or disturbance will be consistent with the protection of the environmental resource.

2. Feasible mitigation measures to protect the resource and a program for monitoring and evaluating the effectiveness of the mitigation measures. Mitigation measures shall be sufficient to reduce identified potentially significant impacts to a level of insignificance.

3. If a new resource protection plan is required to be prepared under this section, the county department considering the application shall comply with CEQA (and, if applicable, NEPA) before approving the plan. The cost of the county's compliance shall be borne by the applicant.

Approval of the use, development, or disturbance of a site located within the EP overlay zone shall not occur unless the applicable review body first finds that:

A. The review of the proposed use, development, or disturbance was undertaken in compliance with this chapter.

B. A resource protection plan or mitigation plan as described in 17.10.040 has been approved for this project.

C. To the extent a new resource protection plan or mitigation plan was approved for this project, its review and approval was undertaken in compliance with the California Environmental Quality Act and, if applicable, the National Environmental Policy Act.

D. The proposed use, development, or disturbance complies with the approved resource protection plan or mitigation plan, and a copy of this approved plan is attached to these findings.