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Week of November 22, 2004 to November 26, 2004 |
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ogo.gif" width="108" height="109" border="0"> "Listen Live" |
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 November 22, 2004 to November 26, 2004
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, November 22, 2004 – FishNet 4C |
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Steelhead and coho salmon are listed as “threatened” under the federal Endangered Species Act. They are listed as “endangered” under the State Endangered Species Act. To put it bluntly, these fish have problems, and most of those problems derive directly from human activity. And here’s another observation: when the fish have problems, so do we. We live, largely, in a world we create ourselves, but we are ultimately dependent (though we forget it) on a world that we don’t create, the word of Nature. If our actions destroy the integrity of the natural environment, they destroy the conditions that make life possible not only for fish, but for human beings, as well. In 1998, representatives from Mendocino, Sonoma, Marin, San Mateo, Santa Cruz, and Monterey Counties commenced a multi-year effort to develop a comprehensive set of actions to protect and enhance steelhead and coho salmon. The end result was a report entitled Effects of Land Use Policies and Management Practices on Anadromous Salmonids and Their Habitats, sometimes called “FishNet 4C.” If you’d like to know how Santa Cruz County is implementing the recommendations of that report, check out the KUSP website, to find a reference to Item #32 on the Board of Supervisors Agenda for tomorrow. I’m proud to say that Santa Cruz County is actually doing something to make things better. For KUSP, this is Gary Patton.
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| Tuesday, November 23, 2004 – San Luis Obispo County Item |
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The five elected officials who serve on County Boards of Supervisors have a great deal of authority over the land use policies that will guide future growth and development, so it’s important to pay attention to what they’re doing. Yesterday, I mentioned an effort in Santa Cruz County to help restore and protect steelhead and coho salmon. This comprehensive program, known as “FishNet 4C,” is an initiative of County government. County land use policies and practices were shown to be endangering the environment, so Santa Cruz County is now systematically doing something to make things better. Just for the record, the FishNet 4C report actually showed that Santa Cruz County was doing a better job than the other counties that have streams supporting native salmon, so it is to their especial credit that they didn’t rest on their laurels, but in fact initiated a comprehensive program to eliminate the problems that do exist. Not every county surveyed in the FishNet 4C report took such a systematic approach. Down south, in San Luis Obispo County, the Board of Supervisors is meeting today and will consider a possible amendment to the County’s land use ordinances, modifying the existing Transfer of Development Credit program in a way that might lead to increased development on agricultural land. The nonprofit group Environment in the Public Interest has put out an alert. If you’re a San Luis Obispo County resident, that’s an item that’s worthy of your attention. For KUSP, this is Gary Patton.
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| Wednesday, November 24, 2004 – Highway 1 Corridor Design Guidelines |
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The Fort Ord Reuse Authority, or FORA, has a state-mandated responsibility to guide the reuse and redevelopment of the lands of the former Fort Ord. Long time listeners will remember a major controversy centered on affordable housing. For about a year, hundreds of people showed up at FORA meetings, to ask FORA to impose a requirement that new housing developments on Fort Ord (which is public land, after all) contain a significant share of housing affordable to local working families. Such a rule would have been a mandate on the cities of Seaside, Marina, Monterey, Del Rey Oaks, and the County of Monterey. It’s fair to say that the FORA Board of Directors gave a strong “stiff arm” to that effort. Instead of requiring that 40% of all new housing be affordable, which is what the public asked for, FORA voted to require only the minimum already mandated under state law. There is a structural reason for this non-responsiveness. Each voting member of the FORA Board is also a member of a local City Council or the Board of Supervisors. Actions by FORA necessarily impose restraints on local government discretion, and it’s natural for the FORA Directors to vote against that. In the latest example, FORA is proposing to adopt viewshed protection guidelines for Highway One that essentially impose no specific requirements at all, and let each local government do whatever it wants.
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| Thursday, November 25, 2004 – Thanksgiving |
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I am thankful for having had the opportunity to read the inspiring writings of Hannah Arendt, and especially her book On Revolution, which touches so profoundly on American democracy and politics. We are each given, says Arendt, the inestimable gift of freedom. And because we have that gift, we are able to create, together, a “new order in the world,” a new way of doing things. In short, the essence of politics is possibility. On the back of our dollar bill is an unfinished pyramid, at the very pinnacle of which is what I can only think of as the visionary eye of the spirit, associated with a banner that reads, “Novus Ordo Seclorum,” a “New Order in the World.” Arendt was most emphatically not talking about the “New World Order” that American Presidents have recently decided it is their prerogative to impose on other peoples. Quite the opposite. As a survivor of Nazi totalitarianism, Arendt’s writings convey, ultimately, a message of solid and unconquerable hope. At a time of political discouragement and failure, and in a cold season, I am thankful to remember that there is, in every instant, an opportunity to begin again. No matter what our failures may have been, or what obstacles there may be, we can, together, create a society of justice and truth, that is based on and respects the natural world upon which all life depends, that that is worthy of the human spirit. For KUSP, on Thanksgiving, this is Gary Patton.
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| Friday, November 26, 2004 – Theodore Roosevelt on Property Rights |
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The LandWatch Monterey County website has a section called, “Quotes on the Land,” and I thought I’d highlight one of those quotes today. So, who do you think said this? "Every man holds his property subject to the general right of the community to regulate its use to whatever degree the public welfare may require it." This was not Karl Marx. It was, in fact, the first American President ever to be called a “conservationist,” Theodore Roosevelt. The statement is absolutely accurate in terms of what the United States Constitution says about what are commonly called “private property rights.” A person does not actually have the “right” to do whatever he or she may want to do with his or her property. You need to get a permit. You need to get “permission” from the local community to make a change in an existing use of property. That’s the American way. Our laws do give rights to property owners, but the neighbors and the community at large have rights as well. I can’t turn my home into a bar and nightclub without permission, and I can’t subdivide and pave over my agricultural land without permission, either. The reason that community-adopted rules and regulations about land use are so important is that these rules and regulations actually determine both individual and community “rights” with respect to property. If you want to play a role in writing those rules and regulations, now’s the time to get involved, as many local jurisdictions are working on their local General Plans. For KUSP, this is Gary Patton.
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Archives of past transcripts are available here
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CONTACT 306 Capitol Street #101 PO Box 1876 Phone (831) 759-2824 Fax (831) 759-2825 |
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