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Shoreline CAC <br />February 17, 2010 <br />Meeting Highlights <br />Page 12 <br />BCDC is both an environmental protection agency and an economic development <br />agency. It tries to balance these two objectives and reach sound policy decisions for <br />shoreline development and usage. The decision makers are compromised of a 27- <br />member Commission, including nine elected officials that represent local counties; nine <br />appointed by the Governor and Legislature; and nine people from local, federal and <br />state agencies that also have some control over the Bay. <br />Permitting projects is one component of BCDC's work. It has a staff of 32 which <br />manages approximately 1,600 square miles of bay. San Francisco Bay is one of the <br />most urbanized estuaries in the world. It and the adjoining delta, comprise the largest <br />estuary on the west coast of the North and South American continents. <br />BCDC has jurisdiction over two areas: all the water -covered areas of the Bay, including <br />all the tidal marshes, and smaller creeks and sloughs flowing into the Bay and around <br />the edge of the Bay; and a 100-foot-wide band, measured back from the shoreline. Its <br />goals and policies on fill are as follows: <br />Three Primary Goals <br />1. Prevent unnecessary fill in the bay <br />2. Maximize public access to and along the shoreline <br />3. Plan for future <br />Fill in the Bay can be approved only for: <br />1. Water -oriented uses <br />2. Minor fill for public access <br />3. Minor fill to improve shoreline appearance <br />The Bay is shallow, on average about 11 meters deep. Much of San Pablo Bay, Suisun <br />Bay, and the South Bay are very shallow; about 3.5 meters deep; thus the Bay is very <br />easy to build on. By the 1950s, a third of the Bay was gone due to filling for <br />development along the shoreline. Between 1850 and 1960 two square miles were filled <br />every year. <br />In 1959, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers reported that 60% of the remaining Bay, <br />another 325 square miles, could be reclaimed with landfill projects. Citizens revolted. <br />Under the leadership of three East Bay women, in 1965 the citizens of the Bay Area <br />convinced the California Legislature to create BCDC to stop the Bay from continuing to <br />get smaller. Although the Legislature didn't know it at the time, they had created the <br />nation's first state coastal management agency. <br />To maximize public access, the McAteer-Petris Act was adopted and states that: <br />"...existing public access to the shoreline and waters of the San Francisco Bay is <br />inadequate and that maximum feasible public access, consistent with a proposed <br />project, should be provided." <br />BCDC's San Francisco Bay Plan policies on public access state that: "Maximum <br />feasible public access should be provided in and through every new development in the <br />