SANTA CRUZ — Santa Cruz County leaders rejected regulations related to rentable campgrounds in unincorporated areas after the proposal was met with impassioned opposition, especially by many living in mountainous areas. After more than two hours of public testimony Tuesday, the county’s Board of Supervisors unanimously voted to table what Supervisor Zach Friend, who spearheaded the initiative, called a “regulatory framework” for Low-Impact Camping Areas, or LICAs, within its jurisdictional territory. The line of public speakers stretched out of the board’s chambers and into the lobby area of the government center’s fifth floor with most waiting their turn to expressopposition.
Many did so based on the belief that the ordinance, despite its best efforts, posed a risk to public safety by encouraging increased activity in fire-prone areas and carried other downstream impacts such as environmental and noise pollution. “There are no tradeoffs when it comes to catastrophe. They’re just catastrophes,” said Bonny Doon resident Mark Mitchell.
“And if a fire occurs as a result of camping, that’s a catastrophe.” The impetus for the ordinance, as explained by Friend and county staff, was to establish rules for something that is already happening across the county mostly through unpermitted Hipcamps — an Airbnb-like private camping rental program — and to get a preemptory local system in place as statewide legislation encouraging the practice is being drawn up .
