Belvedere board approves cove project amid deed questions

A set of stairs and walkways to the Belvedere Cove waterfront has raised questions about a deed restriction more than a century old.

The Belvedere Planning Commission unanimously voted Tuesday to approve plans for a new staircase on both the city-owned tide lot and the private property at 228 Beach Road. The tide lot, also known as “the strip,” was given to the city by the Belvedere Land Co. under a deed restriction.

The commission also approved a variance to allow the structure to encroach into the rear yard setback.

The property at 228 Beach Road is a 21,000-square-foot parcel that slopes to the cove, according to city staff. In 1975, the city approved the construction of a new dock, stairs and walkways in the tide lot. About half of the stairs and walkways are on city property. The stairs are a hazard because of damage from three landslides.

The project plans are to demolish the 836 square feet of concrete walkways and wood steps, then build 460 square feet of wooden stairs and landings that would run from the private property to the tide lot.

About 170 square feet of the new path would be on private property, and 288 square feet on the city’s property. The stairs and walkways would be pressure-treated redwood with galvanized wire railings.

The applicant, Roger Hartley, presented the plans to the commission in May. The main feedback was to include erosion control measures to stabilize the soil, as well as add landscaping.

“We’ll be removing existing portions of the old access,” Hartley said. “The intent is to convert that paved area to landscaped areas.”

The revised plans include three potted Santa Cruz Island ironwood trees, 14 potted Point Reyes ceanothus shrubs and Point Reyes manzanita planted as ground cover on both private and city property. The plans also include a recommendation to the city to install mesh netting in the areas where previous landslides happened.

“It should not be the responsibility of the private property owners to maintain or repair public land,” Hartley said.

In 1896, the Belvedere Land Co. gave a strip of shoreline along Belvedere Cove to the city for the public to use as a public park or waterfront. The gift was deed-restricted so that, other than the existing structures, all private structures except wharves, boathouses or bathhouses were prohibited. The deed also states that no structure can “impede the free passage of pedestrians from one end of The Strip to the other,” according a city staff report.

Planning commissioner Nena Hart asked if the deed restriction intended for wharves, bathhouses and boathouses to be freestanding, or if a connection to them was implied.

“I think that’s the predicament that we’re in,” said Rebecca Markwick, the city’s director of planning and building. “We have these piers that are over the water, and we also have a deed that restricts structures to connect, so I think we have to evaluate.”

Hart asked if the city could go back to the company to ask for clarification.

“It seems ridiculous that it should be brought up every time we have something like this coming up,” Hart said.

Markwick said the city can ask the company for more information. The deed also states the strip is meant to be maintained as a public area, which Markwick said, to her knowledge, it is not. It does remain accessible to the public.

Commission chair Pat Carapiet said that around last year, a staircase in the strip that led to a shared dock was approved without “much hesitation.” She wondered why the deed was being weighed so heavily now.

“To me, that’s not an equal distribution of property rights,” Carapiet said.

Markwick said it is always a risk that the land will be returned to the land company — the condition if the deed is violated — when plans concerning paths and stairs to privately owned piers are granted.

“It’s a bigger issue that I think the city has to deal with at some point and go back to the land company and amend the deed,” said Kevin Burke, a planning commissioner. “The decision to let somebody build stairs in this area to that dock was already decided before this meeting.”

Commissioners recommended that the City Council approve a revocable license for improvements within the tide lot.