LAKEPORT, Calif. – On Monday state and local officials made a site visit to the property that will be the home of Lake County's new courthouse in order to get a sense of how the building's proposed placement could affect the viewshed.
Members of the Courthouse Project Advisory Committee gathered for about a half-hour at the Lake County Chamber of Commerce offices at the Vista Point overlook to survey the site at 675 Lakeport Blvd., where the state intends to build the $53 million project.
Members of the state Administrative Office of the Courts, including Rona Rothenberg, FAIA, senior manager, Administrative Office of the Courts, Office of Court Construction and Management, and Project Manager Anne Ording traveled from San Francisco to meet with the committee.
Present at the site visit were Lake County Superior Court judges Richard Martin, Stephen Hedstrom, Andrew Blum and David Herrick; Ruth Valenzuela of state Assemblyman Wes Chesbro's office; state Sen. Noreen Evan's district representative, Jeff Tyrrell; Supervisor Anthony Farrington; county Public Services Director Kim Clymire; Lakeport officials including City Manager Margaret Silveira, City Engineer Scott Harter and Community Development/Redevelopment Director Richard Knoll; Lake County Chamber Chief Executive Officer Melissa Fulton; and a number of other community members.
After the committee viewed some initial drawings and possible placements for the building at its April meeting, Farrington – who is a member of the group – raised objections to a proposal to place the building on the north side of the property.
Farrington has said that he believes that northern scheme's placement will block the viewshed from the Vista Point overlook.
He has since written a guest commentary on the matter and addressed the matter at Board of Supervisors meetings and at a Lakeport City Council meeting, during which he said he would rather not have the project at all than see it block Vista Point's view.
To illustrate the potential view obstruction, sheets of black plastic attached to 2-by-4 boards were held up at the edge of the overlook. It was pointed out that the actual building's roof would be about 60 feet out from the property edge.
It also wasn't entirely clear how far into the view the building would go, although the building isn't supposed to obstruct a “cone of vision” easement instituted in the 1960s to protect the site.
The group reconvened at 2 p.m. for a meeting. Fulton said the indications were that the Administrative Office of the Courts is taking community members' concerns into account.
“The bottom line is, at the end of the meting, what they were saying was, even though we have this discussion going on, that the project is still actually a little bit ahead of the original time line,” said Fulton, adding that the state is hiring a new architect for the project.
Fulton said state officials anticipate coming back to the group's next meeting in September with preliminary drawings from the new architect.
“In the interim they're doing a lot of fact-finding and investigations based on our input,” she said.
Despite some concerns that had been raised locally that the project could be lost because of the pushback over the early discussions about the building's placement, Fulton said that, based on the statements made at the meeting, there's no indication from the state that the community will lose the much-needed courthouse.
She said there are some challenges for the property due to the slope, but said there was agreement that good engineering can overcome the challenges.
She said the Administrative Office of the Courts also acknowledged that the committee is a cohesive group, which will go a long way toward making the project a success.
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