The Santa Barbara County Grand Jury has been digging up dirt on the codes the county uses to regulate grading.
The report says when bulldozers start moving dirt, the rules aren’t always being evenly applied.
The Grand Jury looked at the process under which grading permits are granted, or denied in unincorporated areas regulated by the county. The report says the county’s grading code is poorly defined, and ambiguous, which means it can be interpreted differently by different inspectors.
The Grand Jury wants the county to clarify wording in some of the technical aspects of the code, as well as changing the current process which allows people to expand grading permits without notification of neighbors.
