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Reports
The following Land Use Reports have been presented on KUSP by Gary Patton, General Counsel of The Planning and Conservation League. The opinions expressed by Mr. Patton are not necessarily those of KUSP Monday, July 7, 2008 – Santa Margarita Ranch If you care about land use policy in San Luis Obispo County, you should attend the San Luis Obispo County Planning Commission meeting this evening, starting at 5:00 o’clock. There is more information in the transcript of today’s Land Use Report. This afternoon, the County Planning Commission will consider the proposed Santa Margarita Ranch subdivision. I think that this may well be the most controversial proposed development currently being considered in San Luis Obispo County. The Planning Commission is the “next to the last stop” for the application. Final action will be taken by the Board of Supervisors. Governmental approval of a new subdivision is probably the most significant planning decision made at the “project level,” as local governments carry out their responsibility to set land use policy. Once land is divided into new parcels, each of those parcels is separately salable, and approving a subdivision, while in once sense only drawing lines on a map, actually commits the community to all the long term responsibilities that go along with growth, including the need to provide water, schools, transportation infrastructure, law enforcement protection, and social services. The developers are looking for approval of 111 residential parcels, to be located in a rural and agricultural portion of the County. This is not the compact, city-centered, “smart growth” development that planners tend to support, and County planners are recommending denial. For KUSP, this is Gary Patton. More Information Tuesday, July 8, 2008 – Salinas Widewaters The City of Salinas is moving ahead with a major downtown redevelopment project. Twenty-two parcels of city-owned land are involved, mostly occupied by buildings that provide services to the public, such as the John Steinbeck Library, the City Hall, the Police Department, and several parking lots. The City is not planning to undertake this redevelopment effort by itself. Instead, the City has entered into an agreement with a set of private developers, known as the Widewaters Group. The City Council, in other words, is asking a private, out of county developer, to “envision” how its current public properties could be used to generate more money. So far, no binding commitment has been made, but the City may well sign a contract relatively soon that essentially turns over its public property to the private developers, in return for various commitments (not yet specified) which the developers will make to the City. Since the developers are going to front the money for the “visioning” effort, the developers are expecting to get their financial rewards at the end. The danger with this kind of an arrangement is that the City won’t really get full value for its land. One way to insure that it does is to have significant public participation, at every stage. If you’re a Salinas resident, the Council is talking about transferring your land to private parties. So, be advised, and get engaged! For KUSP, this is Gary Patton. More Information Wednesday, July 9, 2008 – The Future of Groundwater in the Pajaro Valley Groundwater overdraft occurs when more water is being taken out of a groundwater basin, on average, than is returned to the basin, each year, by rains and streamflow. Because it’s underground, it’s hard to know the exact dimensions and capacity of a groundwater basin, but it is generally possible to determine its capacity, and to tell whether the level in the groundwater basin is going up or down. That kind of research has been done for the Pajaro Valley groundwater basin, and the news is rather bad. After fifty years or more of continual overdrafts, the basin is in danger of being lost. Because the Pajaro Valley groundwater basin is located along the coast, declining water levels cause seawater, which ends up being at a higher level as groundwater is depleted, to flow into the fresh water supplies, contaminating them. Groundwater overdraft means that we are living beyond our water income, and using our savings. That’s fine for a short time, but in the long term we go broke. Unfortunately, not only are we approaching water bankruptcy in the Pajaro Valley groundwater basin, the governmental agency set up to deal with the problem is itself nearing bankruptcy. Some years ago, the State Legislature took away County government responsibility, in favor of the Pajaro Valley Water Management Agency. If that Agency in fact goes bankrupt, it may well be time for the County to get involved directly, once again. For KUSP, this is Gary Patton. More Information Thursday, July 10, 2008 – Environmental Law Starting in September, I will be teaching Environmental Law at De Anza College, in Cupertino. Preparing for that has made me think about what “environmental law” is really all about. The way I look at it, we actually live in two different worlds, simultaneously. One of them is the world of nature, upon which our lives ultimately depend. More immediately, we live in a “human world” that we create ourselves, through human action. In the natural world, “natural laws” are in effect (like the law of gravity). The essence of a “natural law” is that it absolutely describes what will happen under certain conditions. You throw something up into the air, and it comes down according to the “law of gravity.” You put so much CO2 up into the air, and the planet warms up in a predictable way. “Natural laws” cannot be changed. They’re descriptive, and tell us what must and will happen. “Human laws” don’t describe what must or will happen. Our laws are “prescriptive,” not “descriptive.” They tell us not what must happen, but what we believe ought to happen. They are like a doctor’s prescription we write for ourselves. In this “two world hypothesis,” what environmental law is all about (or what it should be all about) is finding the right prescription for the world we create, to make sure that what we do doesn’t violate the laws of nature, and put our planet, and ourselves, in peril. AB 32, the Global Warming Solutions Act, is a pretty great example! For KUSP, this is Gary Patton. More Information Friday, July 11, 2008 – State Legislation on Land Use City and County officials sometimes bandy about the term “local control” when they discuss land use, indicating their view that they should be the final arbiters of what local land use policy should look like. Mostly, local officials do make the most important decisions about land use. This is not, however, because there is any fundamental principle in the Constitution, or otherwise, that says that all land use policy decisions should be local. In fact, when the public perceives that there’s a real crisis (whether it’s a groundwater emergency in the Pajaro Valley or a need to protect the natural resources of the coastal zone), we often turn to action by the state government to address the problem. Currently, the State Legislature is considering a number of measures that could have a big impact on land use policy. I’ve provided a link to the Planning and Conservation League website in the written transcript of today’s Land Use Report, to provide access to some of the most important legislation. Here are just a few of the highlights:
For KUSP, this is Gary Patton. More Information |