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Listen to the reports each weekday at 6:49 am & 8:49 am To
suggest a topic for a future land use report, or to convey a comment,
please use this link.
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| Past
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, October 27, 2008 – Santa Cruz Highway Projects Land use and transportation issues are inextricably linked. For Santa Cruz County residents, here’s a “heads up” on a couple of upcoming events, one of them purely ceremonial, but one of them extremely substantive. First the ceremony and celebration! On Friday, November 7th, at 1:00 o’clock in the afternoon, the Santa Cruz County Regional Transportation Commission, CALTRANS, and the City of Santa Cruz are going to celebrate the completion of the Highway 1/ Highway 17 merge lanes project with a ribbon cutting to be held on the new Highway 1 / Branciforte Avenue overcrossing, in Santa Cruz. The Director of CALTRANS, Will Kempton, and local dignitaries, are all slated to be on the scene. You’re invited, too! Much more substantively, CALTRANS and the Santa Cruz County Transportation Commission are planning to continue their efforts to “improve” Highway One by widening it, beginning right where the merge lane project ends, and then continuing south. A description of this project will be presented at an “open house” event scheduled at the Santa Cruz County Government Center on Wednesday, October 29th. The open house presentation runs from 5:00 to 8:00 p.m., with a public hearing portion scheduled from 6:30 to 7:30. If you’d like to help fight global warming by building new and wider highways, you should be there! And you should be there if you have the opposite idea, too! For KUSP, this is Gary Patton. More Information Transportation Commission Website – http://www.sccrtc.org/ Tuesday, October 28, 2008 – “Par 3” – There’s A Big Public Hearing Tonight The Santa Cruz County Board of Supervisors will be holding a public hearing this evening, to consider the future of the so-called “Par 3” property, located on the inland side of Highway One, just north of State Park Drive. If you’d like to participate, the hearing will begin at 7:00 p.m., on the fifth floor of the County Government Center, located at 701 Ocean Street, Santa Cruz. The Par 3 property is visible from Highway One, and currently appears as a kind of unattended and weed-filled field, with radio antennas stuck out in the middle. In the past, the property was an exceptionally popular “Par 3” golf course, and the “Par 3” name has stuck. The official general plan designation and zoning for the property indicates that the property should be used for “open space” and “parks and recreation” uses. The former golf course was a private recreational facility, first opened for business in 1962. The golf course went out of business in 1999, with the property owner wanting to turn the area into housing. Affordable housing activists tended to think that this would be a good idea, since developing the property could provide a very significant addition to the County’s affordable housing stock. Local residents and parks advocates have a strongly opposing view. If you care about the future of the Par 3 property, plan to be at the public hearing this evening! For KUSP, this is Gary Patton. More Information Santa Cruz County Website – http://www.co.santa-cruz.ca.us/ Wednesday, October 29, 2008 – Felton Faire and Affordable Housing Parks advocates made themselves heard yesterday evening, as the Santa Cruz County Board of Supervisors focused on the “Par 3” property in Aptos. This property has historically been used for private recreation, and that’s consistent with the current zoning and general plan designations. Official designations aside, affordable housing advocates have liked this property for affordable housing development, since developing the property could make a significant contribution to the County’s affordable housing stock. Probably, the last word has not yet been said! In Felton, South County Housing, a nonprofit housing group based in Gilroy, would like to build affordable housing on property located at the intersection of Graham Hill and Mount Hermon Roads. This site, too, could make a very significant contribution to the County’s affordable housing stock. In the case of the Felton property, however, there’s a problem that goes beyond neighborhood resistance to the development. The Felton site has no sewer connection, usually an absolute requirement for housing developments at higher densities. The proposed development plan would use septic systems to provide necessary sewage disposal for what is envisioned as a 55-unit development. As is often the case, less than desirable land is sometimes proposed for affordable housing because the land price is low. Unfortunately, it’s usually low for a reason. There’s more on the KUSP website. For KUSP, this is Gary Patton. More Information Article on the proposed Felton Faire development - http://www.gtweekly.com/20081020267215/news/housing/well-crap Thursday, October 30, 2008 – “Subdivision” And Its Effects How a county government deals with proposals to subdivide rural properties is often the best gauge of its land use planning philosophy. I’m not talking, here, about major new subdivisions. I’m talking about the county either agreeing, or not, to approve what is often called a “minor land division,” creating four or fewer new parcels, or even to make what is sometimes called a “lot line adjustment,” the effect of which is to create new buildable parcels where they did not previously exist. The reason that this is an important “tip off” to the county’s approach to long range planning is that all these smaller decisions add up to a cumulatively significant result. As a practical, political reality, if the Board lets property owner “A” subdivide his rural property into new parcels, why wouldn’t it also let property owners “B,” and “C,” and so on, do the same thing? One small, rural lot division doesn’t fundamentally change the character of our rural areas. But repeated and widespread small lot divisions do add up, and they do change our rural areas. In fact, they transform them into non-rural areas. Today, at the Monterey County “Minor Subdivision Committee,” a politically well-connected property owner along River Road will almost certainly be allowed to take one more incremental step towards the destruction of this spectacular rural area. Find out more by tracking down the transcript for today’s Land Use Report. For KUSP, this is Gary Patton. More Information A staff report discussing the proposed Mohsin-Samoske subdivision can be found on the agenda of the County’s Minor Subdivision Committee. Here, a general plan amendment would be necessary to allow the further subdivision of this spectacular rural area in Monterey County. The staff is recommending approval, which will almost certainly be granted. Agenda of the Monterey County Minor Subdivision Committee – http://www.co.monterey.ca.us/planning/cca/sub/2008/10-30-08/sub10-30-08a.htm Friday, October 31, 2008 – AB 32 Implementation The “inconvenient truth” of global warming is more than just “inconvenient.” Continued global warming is likely to destroy the world as we know it. In this case, the “world” I am talking about is specifically the “human world” we have created within the natural world upon which we ultimately depend. However dramatic the effects of global warming on the natural environment, we’re probably not going to destroy the planet with our climate changing activities. That’s good. However, we do not most immediately live in the natural world, but in a human world we have built inside the natural world, and which we often call our “civilization.” And human civilizations, it seems, are in real peril, right now, and right here. Californians can be happy that our state government has made a legal commitment on our behalf, to roll back greenhouse gas emissions. But we shouldn’t be too self-congratulatory. The Air Resources Board has published a “Scoping Plan,” that outlines how we might achieve the rollback goals we’ve set, and I’m not sure that plan is really going to do what needs to be done. I’ve put references to the Scoping Plan in the transcript for today’s Land Use Report, and I would like to urge all of you to get directly involved. There will be public hearings in both November and December. Above all, we need to make sure that we don’t treat global warming like some “inconvenient” truth that can be handled through an appropriate bureaucratic procedure. It requires our fullest attention and involvement. For KUSP, this is Gary Patton. More Information ARB Website – www.arb.ca.gov/
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