Coastal Hills Rural Preservation is continuing efforts to limit the expansion of Ratna Ling Retreat Center and Dharma Publishing. If their Use Permit is approved, Dharma Publishing will have six presses, 94 workers (from 27 in 2004), 40,000 square feet of book storage space, no limit on the number of books they can produce and a 24 foot press supply truck every day. Residents of the combined printing and retreat operations will be 122 (from 67 in 2004).
Ratna Ling is organized, has professional representation and is well funded.
Your support and donations are essential if we are persuade the County to require Ratna Ling to move their printing operation to an appropriate industrial location or at the very least return to the "ancillary" one press printing operation they presented to the community in 2004.
Unfortunately the present Board of Zoning Adjustments and Board of Supervisors is undermining the General Plan and Zoning Regulations piecemeal, throughout the county, by approving one inappropriate project at a time. This is the case with Dharma Publishing. (We do not oppose the Retreat Center.) The BZA and Bd. of Sups will go on their merry way unless we push back. Please join your neighbors to preserve rural life and stop industrial development on the coastal ridges.
Our next meeting is
Monday, May 7th at 6p.m.
Fort Ross School
A reminder: Dharma Publishing operated very successfully in Berkeley for 30 years before moving to Ratna Ling. Now they must truck in all raw materials and ship out all finished products 200 miles to the Bay Area. Ratna Ling pays no property taxes to offset the impact of the printing operation on local roads and community services.
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