KUSP LandWatch News
Week of December 20, 2004 to December 24, 2004

The Hollister City Council will be meeting this evening at 7:00 o’clock. Hollister is the largest city in San Benito County, which has been struggling for years with the immense impacts of growth in the Silicon Valley.

The state’s planning and zoning laws allow jurisdictions to “export” their growth impacts. For instance, there has been tremendous job growth in Santa Clara County over the last twenty years, but while jobs have increased, housing for the new workers has not kept pace. When new jobs are created, this generally has a positive impact on the fiscal situation of the community in which this new job development occurs. But that’s not true with respect to housing. New residential growth doesn’t make a local community more prosperous. In fact, residential growth increases local costs, and may actually impoverish a community if that residential growth has not been properly balanced with new jobs. Santa Clara County has tended to take the new jobs, and has exported the costly residential development to other places, like San Benito County (and even to Salinas, where the City has had mammoth residential development, and is now in such fiscal difficulties that it has had to close every one of its libraries).

On the agenda for the Hollister City Council this evening is a public hearing on the implementation plan for its Community Development Project Area. This plan outlines one way that Hollister is trying to deal with the growth pressures it’s facing.

For KUSP, this is Gary Patton.

More Information:

City of Hollister Website
http://hollister.ca.gov/site/index.asp

December 20, 2004 City Council Agenda
http://www.hollister.clients.e21corp.com/Upload/Document/
D240000296/ccagenda.December%2020,%202004.pdf

In a market-based society, decisions about who gets what are mostly made in voluntary exchanges between willing sellers and persons who want to acquire various goods and services. Some people call this the “Golden Rule,” or “those who have the gold, make the rules.” The rule of the market is that those with more money “outbid” those who have less money. That’s evident, for instance, in our local housing market.

Because we are a community, however, and not just a collection of individuals, we do act, as a community, to modify market mechanisms. When a builder constructs a new house, his focus is on selling that house to a willing buyer (for about $500,000 per house, in the current market). The builder is not expected to focus on the new public problems that will come when the house is sold. Traffic, school impacts, stormwater runoff, and water supply concerns are just a few of these “community level” problems that accompany free market transactions in housing. Because the market focuses on individual transactions, we need to act legislatively, as a community, and using our democratic political process, to make sure that these community problems are addressed.

In this perspective, land use and planning laws are the way we make sure, as a community, that the “market” benefits everyone, and not just the buyer and seller in any specific transaction.

For KUSP, this is Gary Patton.

Individual, market transactions have public impacts, and the community can deal with these impacts through appropriate rules and regulations. That helps ensure that individual market transactions benefit everyone.

Economists call this “correcting for the externalities.” Every individual market transaction can have an impact that is “external” to the parties involved in that specific transaction. If the community does not make the parties do something about those “external impacts,” or “externalities,” then the cumulative effect of such inattention will ultimately have a significant and negative effect on the community. Traffic congestion, groundwater overdraft, and school overcrowding are three good examples.

One of the “externalities” of free market transactions in farmland is the disappearance of that farmland. As farmland is converted, individual farmland owners make money, but the cumulative impact of those individual transactions may actually be to destroy the local economy based on agriculture. An acre of farmland is worth about $20,000 as farmland, but it’s worth $200,000 or more if it can be converted to urban uses. In a “free market,” farmland owners will ultimately convert their farmland to subdivisions and shopping malls, unless the community takes some action to “correct” for this result of the unregulated market. Strong planning policies can do just that!

For KUSP, this is Gary Patton.

The City of Marina, which calls itself the “Gateway to the Monterey Peninsula,” is a good place to be if you’re interested in land use planning. Lots of things are going on in Marina. Last Friday, for example, the City held a holiday get together to celebrate the opening of their “Strategic Development Center.” This is a newly-created administrative group within the City bureaucracy, and it’s dedicated to advancing the approval of the major development projects now underway in Marina. Among these is the so-called “Marina Station” development that would be built on that portion of the Armstrong Ranch located within Marina’s Urban Growth Boundary. Other major developments are “Marina Heights” and “University Villages,” both located on the lands of the former Fort Ord.

Marina will actually own lands on the former Fort Ord, which puts the City in a unique position. Mostly, cities get to review development proposals made by private property owners. In the case of the “Marina Heights” and “University Villages” developments, however, the City is the owner itself. It’s a different role completely, or at least it could be. How the City of Marina uses its lands will depend largely on what Marina residents say, as they participate in the development process. On January 4th, at 6:30 p.m., there will be an important meeting on the “University Villages” proposal. Get more information at www.kusp.org.

For KUSP, this is Gary Patton.

More Information:

City of Marina Website
http://www.ci.marina.ca.us/

The January 4, 2005 meeting on “University Villages” will be held at 6:30 p.m. at the Marina City Hall, located at 211 Hillcrest Avenue in Marina. This meeting will focus on parks, recreation, and schools. It’s the first in a series of meetings on the “University Villages” project. Unfortunately, the full list is not posted on the City’s website. To get the full list, please contact the City Clerk, Joy Junsay, by calling her at (831) 884-1228, Ext. 211, or by email at: jjunsay@ci.marina.ca.us

The day before Christmas is a good time to remember that the message of this season can inspire not only our personal lives, but our political and community life, as well.

Consider the well known Christmas scene. It is deep winter, and the darkness of the season reflects a kind of discouragement and despair. “In the country, there were shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flocks by night. And lo, the Angel of the Lord came upon them, and a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God and saying, `Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will towards men.' And they were sore afraid."

This message tells us not what is, but what is to come. In a dark season of discouragement, we celebrate a feast of lights. While we are afraid to hear it, for it makes a claim upon us, Angels in America, and everywhere, proclaim that something new and transforming has occurred. A new reality is being born, and a whole new order in the world. A new power is now available to us, a power to move mountains, and bring peace on earth. The message of this season is a declaration of faith – a message to apply to our politics and community life, as well as to our personal lives.

The news I provide on this Land Use Report can be discouraging. This is a good day to remember the profoundly human truth that all that despair and discouragement can be (and may I say, “will be”) overcome. My very best wishes to all.

For KUSP, this is Gary Patton.