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KUSP LandWatch
News
Week of August 11, 2003 to August 15, 2003
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KUSP LandWatch
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KUSP provided a brief Land Use Report on KUSP Radio from January 2003 to May 2016. Archives of past transcripts are available here.
Week of August 11, 2003 to August 15, 2003
The following Land Use Reports have been presented on KUSP Radio by Gary Patton, Executive Director of LandWatch Monterey County. The opinions expressed by Mr. Patton are not necessarily those of KUSP Radio, nor of any of its sponsors.
Monday,
August 11, 2003 – Lots of Meetings
These Land Use Reports have been appearing on KUSP for about two
years. When the idea of doing a regular report was first presented,
as the “shoreward” counterpart to the great bulletins
from Captain Steph Dutton, out on the Bay, I thought there might
be a shortage of topics. Not so! There are more things going on
in the land use arena than I can begin to report about. Today, for
instance, there are two meetings of significance, and a court proceeding,
and there’s an important public hearing tomorrow night.
You can see how land use issues get handled in court by attending the oral arguments in the lawsuit against the Ocean View Plaza development, proposed for Cannery Row in Monterey. The trial of that case begins this morning at 9:00 o’clock, at the Monterey County Courthouse on Aguajito Road.
This afternoon at 5:00 o’clock, at the Marina City Hall, you can observe the developer selection process for the proposed University Villages project. At 6:00 o’clock, at the Greenfield City Hall, you could attend the Planning Commission hearing on the proposed Land Use Element of the Greenfield General Plan. Last on my list, but certainly not least important, the Watsonville City Council will be considering its proposed Housing Element tomorrow, at 6:00 p.m. at the Watsonville City Hall.
If you’re in the neighborhood, think about getting involved. There’s more information on the KUSP website.
For KUSP, this is Gary Patton.
More Information:
Attorney Mike Stamp has information on Ocean View Plaza – stamplaw1@redshift.com
Marina City Website
http://www.ci.marina.ca.us/Greenfield City Website
http://www.greenfield-ca.com/
Tuesday,
August 12 2003 – Land Use and Water
Land use and water are related. There’s no doubt about it.
Almost every use we make of the land requires the consumptive use
of water. Therefore, new land use developments are dependent on
an adequate water supply. Good land use policies need to tie development
approvals to the availability of water. This often puts water agencies
right into the middle of land use controversies.
On the Monterey Peninsula, where development pressures are intense, but where water supplies are scarce, this inevitable relationship between water and land use has engendered some very heated public policy debate. Senate Bill 149, for instance, authored by State Senator Bruce McPherson, would eliminate the current right of the voters of the District to approve new water supply projects. Arguably, this could speed up or expand water supply projects, and open up new development opportunities.
What the state does, however, with this pending legislation, will probably have much less impact, in the long run, than what the voters do locally. At least two current members of the Board of Directors of the Monterey Peninsula Water Management District, generally considered to be “environmentalists,” have decided not to run for reelection. If you’d like to get involved in this super-important, but “supercharged” issue, you have until 5:00 p.m. tomorrow to file as a candidate.
For KUSP, this is Gary Patton.
More Information:
Monterey Peninsula Water Management District
http://www.mpwmd.dst.ca.us/
Wednesday,
August 13, 2003 – First Tee in Marina
Not all important land use issues involve proposed housing developments.
Of course, many do. Not only is there lots of “market demand”
for housing along the Central Coast (which means that developers
can often realize a handsome profit when they get project approval),
the long term economic health of our communities does require housing.
There needs to be that “jobs-housing” balance you may
have heard about, and which is not just an exercise in matching
numbers of new jobs to the number of new houses. The “affordability”
(or not) of the housing produced is at least as important as the
number of houses. Whether or not the housing produced in a local
community will be “affordable” to local workers will determine
whether workers can find a place to live. If they can’t, the
local economy will likely be in trouble.
A debate about this critically important topic is at the root of the policy discussions currently going on at the Fort Ord Reuse Authority. I’ll give you a report on that on Friday. Today, I want to highlight a non-housing proposal for land on the former Fort Ord. At 7:00 o’clock this evening, at the Seaside City Hall, the Seaside Planning Commission will consider the proposed First Tee Project, which would turn 125 acres of Seaside’s Fort Ord lands into an 18-hole, executive length golf course. If you want to weigh in, don’t miss this meeting. There’s more information at www.kusp.org.
For KUSP, this is Gary Patton.
More Information:
Seaside City Website
http://bbs.ci.seaside.ca.us/
Thursday,
August 14, 2003 – Monterey County GPU Refinement Group
The so-called General Plan Update “Refinement Group,”
established by the Monterey County Board of Supervisors, is scheduled
to meet tomorrow from 1:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. at the Monterey County
Leadership Institute, located on Garden Road in Monterey. Members
of the public are definitely invited to attend, and will have a
limited ability to participate.
Monterey County residents may have been reading about this “Refinement Group” in the newspapers. Its general purpose is to find “consensus” solutions for difficult General Plan policy problems, but the group spent almost two entire meetings debating the meaning of “consensus” itself, and has had an extremely difficult time agreeing even to basic ground rules. For instance, a statement that the meetings of the group should “begin and end on time” engendered great debate. At one meeting, it took over an hour to approve the minutes of the previous meeting. You get the idea. Making this “Refinement Group” process work is not as easy as some may have thought. It’s composed of groups that have all participated vigorously in the Monterey County General Plan Update process, and whose policy differences are well-known. The hope was that many of these differences might be resolved, on a “consensus” basis, if all the groups just sat down together in the same room. Unfortunately, that hasn’t happened so far. Maybe more progress will be realized at the meeting this week.
For KUSP, this is Gary Patton.
More Information:
Monterey County GPU
http://www.co.monterey.ca.us/gpu/
Friday,
August 15, 2003 – Report on FORA Meeting Last Friday
Last Friday, the Fort Ord Reuse Authority took an historic first
step towards more affordable housing on the former Fort Ord. For
the second month in a row, about two hundred people attended the
FORA meeting, most in support of a set of affordable housing policies
proposed by Congress Member Sam Farr. Both the July and the August
meetings began at 2:00 p.m., and both included testimony from roughly
fifty people. At the July meeting, when the clock struck 6:00, which
is the official adjournment time for the FORA Board, the Chairperson
abruptly adjourned the meeting, foreclosing any discussion on the
proposed policies. The timing was almost identical at the meeting
last week, but this time the FORA Board extended its meeting (as
it might have, but didn’t in July), and took action on Mr.
Farr’s proposals.
Acting unanimously, the Board directed its staff to return on October 10th with actions that would implement the seven policy proposals advanced by Congress Member Farr. The essence of those proposals is that FORA will require, in the future, that 50% of the new housing at Fort Ord will be affordable to persons with moderate or below average incomes, that these housing units will be made permanently affordable, and that they will be offered, first, to persons who reside or work in Monterey County.
This is only the “first step,” but it is a step. For those interested in affordable housing, my advice would be to stay tuned, and stay involved!
For KUSP, this is Gary Patton.
More Information:
For Information on Congress Member Farr’s Policies
http://www.landwatch.org/pages/issuesactions/
fortord/070503farrhousing.htmlFORA Website
http://www.fora.org/
Archives of past transcripts are available here
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