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Monday,
February 10, 2003 – San Benito Growth Management Initiative
Local land use issues are often not just local. The land use challenges
facing the California Central Coast are often regional in scope. Santa
Cruz, Monterey, and San Benito counties, for instance, are all profoundly
affected by what happens in Santa Clara County.
We see this impact most clearly on housing prices. Affordable housing
for the Silicon Valley is not generally found in the Silicon Valley. Silicon
Valley wage earners often find that housing affordable to them is located
in one of the adjacent counties. Impacts on agricultural land and natural
resources are also generated by growth that is occurring within the wider
region.
Geographically, Santa Cruz County is the smallest county in the state.
Growth pressures on Santa Cruz County, generated in the Silicon Valley,
have been a major challenge. San Benito County is "next in line"
in terms of Silicon Valley growth pressures.
In 1978, Santa Cruz County voters adopted a referendum measure that has
helped with, but not eliminated, regional growth impacts. This year, a
group of San Benito County activists are hoping to qualify a comprehensive
growth management initiative for the San Benito County ballot. If you’d
like more information, including a copy of the initiative, visit the KUSP
website at www.kusp.org.
More Information:
A copy of the San Benito County initiative is available on the LandWatch
website (www.landwatch.org). Go
to the "Issues and Actions" section of the website, and look
for "Regional Planning Issues." To get more information on the
San Benito County initiative, contact Ernie Goitein at fego@pacbell.net,
or Mark Levine at mark@hollinet.com.
Tuesday, February 11, 2003 – Monterey County Approves Woodman
Project
Last week, the Monterey County Board of Supervisors approved an "Option
Agreement" with a private developer, to govern the future development
of county lands located on the former Fort Ord. It’s hard to overstate
the importance of Fort Ord for the future of Monterey County.
Assuming that growth pressures continue (and that’s a pretty good
bet), Monterey County has only about three possible strategies to deal
with new residential growth. First, the County could continue to allow
significant residential development throughout its rural areas. This is
probably the least desirable alternative from the perspective of planning
policy.
Second, and this requires some real leadership from the County and from
LAFCO, the Local Agency Formation Commission, growth could be directed
to existing cities. Rural development would be discouraged. The major
problem with this approach is the potential loss of economically productive
agricultural land around the Salinas Valley cities, as they expand in
response to growth pressures.
The third option is to maximize the use of Fort Ord, and to focus a very
significant share of all new residential growth there. In terms of planning
policy, that’s probably the most desirable solution, but it’s
the most difficult to achieve. Unfortunately, the Option Agreement just
approved turns over significant policy making authority to a private developer,
which makes a tough task even tougher.
More Information:
Text of Option Agreement – http://www.co.monterey.ca.us/opt_agr_012103_clean.pdf
Analysis of Option Agreement -http://www.landwatch.org/pages/issuesactions/fortord/020503woodman.html
Wednesday, February 12, 2003 – Walkable Workshop in Marina
Land use policy is important, and complex, and filled with controversy
and difficulties of all kinds. It doesn’t seem to be that much "fun,"
does it?
Well, everyone to their own taste, of course, but I’m here to tell
you that there are some "fun" aspects of land use planning and
land use policy. To prove it, I’d like to invite you to an event
that I think will be quite a bit of fun, if you’re at all interested
in the land use policy topics that I generally cover on these Land Use
Report segments on KUSP.
The event is tonight. It’s a "Walkable Communities Workshop,"
to be held in the City of Marina. And it will be led by Dan Burden, who
is an entertaining, and inspiring speaker. I’ve heard Dan Burden
talk on several occasions (most recently in Salinas, about a year or so
ago), and I think you’ll enjoy his message.
This workshop, I’m almost positive, will feature a set of slides
that Dan has collected from all over the country. They show how changing
the way we design and build our streets and highways can make all the
difference for the shape and character of our community.
The meeting will be held at the Marina Small Business Incubator, located
near the Marina Airport at 3180 Imjin Road. Take the Reservation Road
exit off Highway One and stay on Reservation Road till you see the Airport.
Then, turn left on Imjin. I hope to see you there!
More Information:
Workshop Flyer – http://www.landwatch.org/pages/issuesactions/marina/020603workshop.html
Walkable Communities Website - http://www.walkable.org/
Local Government Commission - http://www.lgc.org/
Livable Streets, Inc. -
http://www.livablestreetsinc.com/
Monterey Bay Unified Air Pollution Control District - http://www.mbuapcd.org/
City of Marina - http://www.ci.marina.ca.us/
For More Information Contact: John Heiser, City of Marina – 831-884-1291
Thursday, February 13, 2003 – Our Water Future
A recent news article had a strange headline. It read: "FRESNO -
Water District May Move To Watsonville." The news story didn’t
actually live up to the headline. It said that Watsonville growers were
negotiating to buy a Fresno County Water District and move the water (not
the district) to their land near the coast. This is all related to a project
being advanced by one of the lesser known but more important public agencies
located here on the Central Coast, the Pajaro Valley Water Management
Agency, sometimes known as the PVWMA.
KUSP listeners probably know that the Pajaro Valley, encompassing areas
in both Santa Cruz and Monterey counties, has been in a condition of serious
groundwater overdraft for a very long time. This overdraft is causing
saltwater contamination of the fresh water aquifers upon which our local
economy is utterly dependent. The solution proposed by the PVWMA is to
build a pipeline to the Central Valley, and to import water from there.
This is a controversial plan.
Other solutions are also controversial. A small local nonprofit, the Monterey
Bay Conservancy, argues that the PVWMA should buy local farmlands, and
take them out of production to reduce water demand. There is more than
one way to bring the basin into balance, and using imported water, is
only one.
More Information:
Pajaro Valley Water Management Agency -
http://www.pvwma.dst.ca.us/
Monterey Bay Conservancy - http://www.pogonip.org/
Friday, February 14, 2003 – General Plan Guidebook
If you’re a frequent listener to this Land Use Report, you’ve
heard me say many times that a community’s General Plan is its "constitution"
for land use, and that the planning policies contained in the local General
Plan will have a profound effect on the future of the community. That’s
all true. State law requires every city and county in California to have
a General Plan, and every planning decision in the community has to be
found "consistent" with that General Plan.
It’s this last feature that makes the General Plan so important.
Every zoning decision, every planning approval, and every public project
must be "consistent" with the policies in the General Plan.
By adopting the right policies, a local community can shape its future
in the way that seems best to that community. This is because General
Plan policies will determine the fate of all the individual planning decisions
that follow. Individual decisions, added up, create the world we ultimately
inhabit.
LandWatch Monterey County has just published a "best policies"
guidebook, entitled "Land Use and The General Plan." It covers
affordable housing, property rights, agricultural land preservation, water,
natural resources protection, transportation and transit, and permit process
reform. If you’d like to get a copy, check the KUSP website at www.kusp.org.
More Information:
KUSP listeners interested in receiving a copy of this recently published
guidebook, "Land Use and the General Plan," should contact Gary
Patton at gapatton@mclw.org. At some point in the near future, LandWatch
hopes to have the full text available at the LandWatch website. You should
check the "Publications" section of the website at www.landwatch.org.
The printed edition will be easier to use, and more helpful for anyone
seriously interested in pursuing adoption of the land use policies it
recommends.
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