News Subscribe  to Our Newsletter Sign  up for Email Updates CGF  In the News Press  Inquiries Past  Articles Calendar			Between  a rock and a hard place  County Planner Tim Heffington watches over Stanford GUP by Brian Schmidt County's Planning  Office staff planner Tim Heffington sits between environmentalists   carefully watching Santa Clara County's oversight of Stanford University  and Stanford's jealously guarding its autonomy. CGF Legislative Advocate Brian Schmidt recently met with  Tim to discuss his work and the Stanford issues that are now before the  County. Brian Schmidt: Tim, your job is different  from anyone else's in the County Planning Office. Is your job title different?  And how would you describe your position? Tim Heffington : My job title is simply Planner, but my work focuses  on ensuring Stanford University implementation of conditions that the  university agreed to in the December  2000 General Use Permit (also called "post-approval monitoring").  I also work with Stanford staff on implementation of land use policies  contained within the Stanford Community Plan. Within the County's unincorporated  jurisdiction, Stanford is unique because campus development is similar  to urban development of cities outside the County's unincorporated jurisdiction. Stanford's permission to develop its property over  the lifetime of the permit included hundreds of conditions of approval  and numerous environmental mitigation measures. The California Environmental  Quality Act (CEQA)  requires a monitoring program to track compliance with these mitigation  measures. I work with Stanford, the community, local jurisdictions and  regulatory agencies to monitor Stanford's compliance. Tim Heffington works daily with the stacks of documents governing the impementation of Stanford's General Use Permit and Community Plan. Brian: You work full-time on Stanford issues, right? Tim: Yes. There is plenty of work to be done by  both Stanford and the County for implementing the conditions and monitoring  compliance with the permit. The Community Plan policies and General Use  Permit conditions have to be implemented. Both documents call for developing  sophisticated plans for managing various environmental issues, and there's  a lot of work that goes on long after the approval of the plans and permits. Brian: Your work also involves the Community  Resource Group. Can you explain to our readers what the CRG is and does? (Schmidt is one of the members of the CRG, which includes 8-12 individuals.  - Ed.) Tim : The CRG brings together groups like yours with  Stanford staff and members of the community in order to review implementation  of the policies that the County adopted with respect to Stanford. A prior  version of the CRG functioned before December 2000 to help develop the  policies, and now the current CRG provides feedback on policy implementation.  I coordinate CRG meetings and facilitate its work. Brian: Let's turn to the work that is going  on right now. Stanford committed to dedicating trails  in return for its permission to develop. Isn't Stanford lagging on its  commitments? Tim: No. Stanford presented a signed agreement identifying  proposed trail dedications within a year of receiving its permit, as it  was required to do. The County does not consider Stanford to be out of  compliance with this General Use Permit requirement. Brian: But the permit says an agreement on  trails will be reached within a year (from the signing of the GUP in  December 2000 - Ed.) , not that Stanford will just present whatever  it feels like presenting. Tim: The County Board  of Supervisors continued consideration of the trails so as to allow  consideration of variations that were not included within Stanford's original  proposal, and environmental groups -- including yours -- had supported  doing that. Brian: I'm not sure that gets Stanford off  the hook when it failed  to present adequate trails, but we don't need to settle this issue  here. What exactly is happening with trails now? Tim: For the S1  Trail , near Page Mill Road, we hope to have a Draft Supplemental Environmental  Impact Report available for public review in June. The County Board of  Supervisors directed us to work first on the S1 Trail and later on the C1 Trail,  so we will develop a timeline for the C1 Trail when we get further along  in S1 Trail process. Brian: Okay, what about the Special Conservation  Areas in the Stanford Foothills? What is happening with them? Tim: The Special Conservation Areas include  land with natural resource constraints and habitat for special status  species. Both the Community Plan and the GUP required Stanford to submit  a Special Conservation Area Plan for those areas. Stanford submitted the  Draft Special Conservation Area Plan concurrently with other GUP-required  plans (Wetlands, Water Conservation, Special Events Traffic, and others). Based on County review and outside reviewer comments,  the County worked with Stanford to revise the other plans first because  they required less revision. Those plans are now completed. (Tim points  to a stack of documents on a table.) After June, when the Draft Trail  SEIR has been reviewed by the public and we have completed the Stanford  Annual Report, we plan to initiate the process for revision of the Special  Conservation Area Plan and adoption of the zoning ordinance amendment  before the end of 2004. Brian : And in the meantime, are the Special Conservation  Areas protected? Tim: Yes. The Stanford Community Plan established  land use policies that protect the Special Conservation Areas. Brian : Has Stanford proposed any development for  the Special Conservation Areas? Tim: Stanford has not proposed any new development  within the Special Conservation Areas. However, Stanford did apply for  and receive approval for a golf course reconfiguration within the County.  This reconfiguration involves golf course turf that is technically within  the existing Special Conservation Area (within County jurisdiction) as  part of a larger Sand Hill Road widening project. Brian : We'll keep watching the Special Conservation  Area issue. Are you involved with monitoring the Carnegie  Foundation building project? Tim: Carnegie, not Stanford, is the official sponsor  of that project, although Stanford as the landowner is also involved.  I know that biological monitoring has been implemented there, but you'll  have to go to our other staff people for the details on Carnegie. Brian: It sounds like you have plenty to do with  everything else regarding Stanford. What do you do when you're not stuck  here at work? Tim: I live in Santa Cruz with my wife and dogs,  and enjoy the beauty of the outdoors whenever I can, including bicycling,  skiing and occasionally getting out on whitewater. And I enjoy hiking  on trails. Brian : Using trails sounds great -- we'll look forward  to doing some of that here. Thank you, Tim. Published March 2004 in Green  Footnotes . Page last updated March 8, 2004

	Photo by Brian Schmidt.