_{Thumbnail image: A Gasquet property owner seeks to subdivide a 40-acre parcel off into two lots as well as extend an existing road that serves the parcel. | Image courtesy of Del Norte County}

A Gasquet property owner received the go-ahead last week to extend a private road as part of his plan to subdivide the 40-acre parcel.

Ron MacMaster contradicted two of his neighbors at the Del Norte County Board of Supervisors’ Aug. 25 meeting and said he has no plans to build a mobile home park. Though the county’s zoning laws allow the property to be subdivided into 21 lots, MacMaster said he’s planning on subdividing it into two lots.

“As far as the road goes, it’s my understanding that’s my property, so my two neighbors shouldn’t be impacted by this at all,” he said. “Right now it’s a dirt road. If it gets gravel and asphalt it’ll keep the dust down. It’ll be an improvement.”

The Board of Supervisors on Aug. 25 unanimously approved modifying the county’s standard for a private rural road to accommodate MacMaster’s request to subdivide the parcel into two lots.

Though the property is at 9105 U.S. 199 in Gasquet, it’s accessed from Valley View Drive via a 160-foot long road. MacMasters’ proposed subdivision calls for extending the road roughly 275 feet north along the eastern property line and then 255 feet west to a turnaround on the second lot.

Though MacMaster is proposing to subdivide the property into two lots, its zoning for residential agricultural and light commercial means it could serve more than 21 lots, according to Assistant County Engineer Rosanna Bower. But because his neighbors aren’t willing to grant MacMaster an easement, he’s unable to meet the county standard for more than 21 lots, which calls for a 50-foot-wide right-of-way, she said.

Breaking the 40-acre property down into segments A, B and C, Bower recommended supervisors approve a 30-foot-wide easement for a 20-foot-wide road with 2-foot shoulders. 

A 30-foot easement on segment B allows for setback from the road and an existing pole barn and leach field. On segment C, a 30-foot easement separates the road from a creek, Bower said.

“A substantial portion of this property is a very steep hillside,” she said, adding that the project applicants would be paying to install the road. “And, so, this parcel as it’s being developed right now is primarily just a flat area. It’s two parcels.”

MacMaster, along with Sharon Tweeten and Donald Scott Henderson, “joint tenant owners,” submitted their application to subdivide the 40-acre property into two parcels to the County Planning Division on March 6.

County planning commissioners approved their application on Aug. 5 contingent on the Board of Supervisors’ granting the modified road standard. The county hasn’t received a proposal to build a mobile home park on the parcel, County Planner Jessica Pollard said Tuesday.

“If a mobile home park is proposed, a use permit will be required as it is not a by-right use in the C2 zone district,” Pollard told Redwood Voice via email.

According to the staff report included in the Planning Commission’s Aug. 5 agenda packet, there is currently a single-family home and a detached shop on the property. It’s served by an on-site septic tank and leach field and is hooked up to public water.

About 25 acres of the 40-acre parcel is zoned rural residential, though it’s within the mountainous portion of the property. Roughly 12 acres is zoned visitor serving commercial and is along U.S. 199.

During the Aug. 25 Board of Supervisors meeting, Denise Risby, who owns the property “on the other side” of Valley View Drive said she worried about what subdividing the parcel would do to her neighborhood. Though the county hasn’t received a proposal for a mobile home park on the parcel, Risby said she was worried that the modified road standard would allow “something like a trailer park to go in right behind our property.”

“If they want to do this, it would be really easy for them to go from 199 and not access anybody’s property,” she said.

Another property owner, who didn’t give his name, but said he represented segment B, told supervisors that the proposed road would go through his land. He also contested the position of a water meter included in Bower’s staff report.

In a July 30, 2025 letter to the Del Norte County Community Development Department, Dan Gjerde, local development review coordinator for Caltrans District 1, said the department couldn’t support the parcel receiving direct access to U.S. 199. Gjerde cited the creek and the property’s steep terrain as two of multiple site constraints.

“The new parcel will have legal access to Valley View Road, a county road with a dedicated turn lane on U.S. 199,” Gjerde wrote. “In contrast, if a new access to U.S. Highway 199 would be installed just to the west of Valley View Road, the new access would be in a less-than-optimal location.”

The access would lack a dedicated left turn pocket, would be in close proximity to the Valley View Drive access and would be on a U.S. highway with commercial trucks, Gjerde wrote.

The California Department of Fish and Wildlife also weighed in on the proposed subdivision due to the existence of two streams, one of which is a tributary to the Smith River. 

Mary’s Creek has a “well-defined stream channel with scour pools, spawning gravel and cold-water habitat.” CDFW Acting Regional Manager Michael Harris said steelhead and rainbow trout and coastal cutthroat trout are likely present in the creek “given their life history and presence in the Smith River.”

CDFW recommends buffer widths of 100-feet between fish-bearing streams and residential development, Harris wrote in his letter. He recommended requiring such a buffer and to shift the proposed road easement to a vacant parcel to the south of a pole barn on the property. 

On Aug. 25, Bower said the road is unable to cross the creek to access U.S. 199 due to that CDFW-recommended buffer between it and the creek. 

“Any development on this parcel at this time will need to go through the existing public utility easement that goes onto Valley View,” Bower said, referring to the existing road.

Before approving the modified road standards, county supervisors asked Community Development Director Heidi Kunstal to weigh in on potential uses for the property. Kunstal, who had spoke with MacMaster several years ago about subdividing the land, said the property’s physical constraints make it complicated to divide.

Speaking in hypotheticals, District 3 Supervisor Chris Howard asked if the flat area that’s currently developable were only large enough for a home and an accessory dwelling unit. Kunstal said “that would be my understanding.”
“If there was any developable land within C2, I’m 100% sure that would require a use permit for any type of residential use in a commercial zone,” she said. 

Soils testing would also be needed to determine where a residential well could be placed, Kunstal said.