[This project has been appealed to the City Council, giving citizens of Morro Bay another chance to look it over and raise concerns with Council members and/or City staff. A hearing date, which was tentatively scheduled for Monday, December 13 at the Vets' Hall, has now been set for January 10th. ]
Distracted by recent elections, wastewater/water and pot dispensary controversies, power plant ownership, and "beautiful verses blight" redevelopment debates, etc., the citizens of Morro Bay have had little chance to notice the 32,000 square foot carport project sneaking in at Morro Bay High School.
Under the guise of "environmentally friendly solar," San Luis Coastal Unified School District recently received approval from the City of Morro Bay's Planning Commission on a 4-1 vote (Jamie Irons dissenting) for nine "carport-like" solar array support structures. These equate in mass to sixteen 2,000 square foot single-level homes, the size of the Albertson's supermarket, or just slightly smaller than a regulation football field.
Morro Bay High School is in plain view of the state designated Scenic Coast Highway 1. Drivers passing through and those homes perched above will view the spanning sea of glass and steel added to the mass of the school itself. To make matters worse, the 55 year old Monterey Cypress trees that currently screen the high school from Highway 1 are slated for a "Marine haircut" —topping them, in some cases by 20 feet, to allow for optimal sun exposure to the solar arrays.
The Planning Commission recognized that the whacking may ultimately kill the trees, but did not send the School District back to the drawing board to relocate the arrays. Their approval conditions the project to landscape with low growing shrubbery that, after ten years of growth, may screen the carports. Also, the district must monitor the solar panel performance for a year, then return to the Planning Commission to receive new approvals before any tree "trimming" takes place and to replace any tree that may die as a result.
While waiting a year to top/kill the trees seems reasonable, it drives the district's investment deeper into the project. If the solar production is less than 100% efficient, the pressure to cut will be significant. These conditions are little consolation when the topping/death scenario could be avoided altogether. Solar arrays should be mounted on the school building rooftops or relocated to the west parking lot on the school grounds to minimize environmental impacts.
An irony in this approval is that the City of Morro Bay has been a partner in the The Tree City USA® Program for over nineteen years. The Tree City USA signs at community entrances tell visitors that here is a community that cares about its environment. It is also an indication to prospective businesses that the quality of life may be better here. To unnecessarily top or kill these trees at the intersection of Highway's 1 and 41 sends a very different message. Moreover, the City's Major Vegetation Removal, Replacement and Protection resolution, adopted in 1995 and amended in 2007, clearly states removal of Major Vegetation "will not adversely affect the character of the surrounding neighborhood." To lose any one of these 29 magnificent trees will affect the character of the surrounding neighborhood; just look at the two trees killed by PG&E "trimming" within the stand a couple of years ago.
