It’s time for the experts to make those traditional Happy New Year predictions, outlining what’s likely to happen in the year ahead. I’m not an expert, exactly, but I do get to go on the radio each weekday morning, discussing land use issues on the Central Coast. No one else does that, as far as I know, so I guess I’m the next best thing to an expert in this limited (but not completely irrelevant) field of endeavor. In the conspicuous absence of Dave Barry or Jon Carroll, here’s what I think.

The year 2005 will bring continued pressures for development in San Luis Obispo County, but not so much that the frog in the kettle will notice very much. In Santa Cruz County, the largest daily newspaper will continue to bemoan the lack of a major, San Jose style freeway, and who knows what the City Council will do about that proposal for a massive hotel above Cowell’s Beach. If you care, give those Council people a call. Former Mayor Don Lane is urging nonprofit organizations to support the hotel, because he thinks that will raise money for the City (which will of course spend it on the nonprofits).

In Monterey County (as I’m running out of time here), my prediction is that the frog is going to get outside the kettle and start hopping all over the place. There will be a referendum on Rancho San Juan, more lawsuits, and efforts by the Board of Supervisors to approve virtually every development presented to them, most of which will not enjoy broad public support. The General Plan? Let’s think about that in 2006!

For KUSP, this is Gary Patton.

More Information:

For current Information on Monterey County land use issues – www.landwatch.org

The “frog in the kettle” metaphor may or may not be a metaphor that is widely understood. If you are one of the tens of thousands (or even hundreds of thousands) of people who don’t know what this metaphor is all about, let me say that somebody (maybe it was Mark Twain, but I can’t really remember) points out that the best way to boil a frog is to put the frog in a nice cool kettle of water, and then to heat it slowly on the stove. The frog never really notices that it’s being boiled alive until it’s too late. Land use activists have frequently used this “frog in the kettle” metaphor to describe the effects of exponential growth. Put another way, how could the people in Orange County have failed to notice what was happening? The “frog in the kettle” explanation seems about as good as any. For another way of thinking about it, check out the “Bug in the Bottle” metaphor on the LandWatch website.

Many people listen to this Land Use Report on a daily basis, and if you’re one of them, and had no idea what that “frog in the kettle” stuff was all about yesterday, please click on the Land Use Report link at www.kusp.org, and find the transcript for yesterday’s broadcast. Everything will be explained there.

Tonight, the Monterey City Council is expected to adopt the Planning Commission’s recommendations for a new General Plan for the City of Monterey. You may want to attend. The local General Plan is the most important document guiding the future growth and development of the community, and that’s because every land use decision must be “consistent’ with the General Plan. Hundreds of land use decisions are made each year. For instance: can your neighbor add a guest house? Can a major hotel expand? Can a defunct strip mall be turned into apartments? Can adjacent farmlands be developed?

These individual decisions add up, and what they add up to is the future of your community. If the General Plan actually says what the community wants, then members of the community shouldn’t have to go to every meeting where decisions are made about land use. Those decisions will be consistent with the General Plan, so they should add up to the kind of future that members of the community can be happy about.

Of course, it’s not quite that easy. However, if you live in the City of Monterey, tonight’s your chance to speak out on the plan that will largely guide the future of your community.

For KUSP, this is Gary Patton.

More Information:

City of Monterey Website
http://www.monterey.org/

January 4, 2005 Monterey City Council Agenda
http://www.monterey.org/ccncl/agendas/2005/a050104.pdf

“Land Use and the General Plan”
http://www.landwatch.org/pages/publications.htm#generalplan

Last night, the Monterey City Council considered the General Plan that will guide the future growth and development of that city. This afternoon and evening, the Monterey Architectural Review Committee will take up some of those “individual decisions” I talked about yesterday.

Land use decisions are made on a “case by case” basis, as individual property owners and developers ask for permission to do specific things on specific pieces of property. Since the sum total of these individual decisions will have such a profound effect on the local economy, the environment, and our ability to achieve our social equity goals, it makes a lot of sense, just in terms of efficiency, to invest a significant effort in getting the General Plan right. If the General Plan does say what the community wants it to say, then all these individual decisions should add up to a good result. All the individual decisions do have to be “consistent” with the local General Plan. That’s a state law requirement.

The “fun stuff” in planning, however, probably does come at the “individual decision” level. This afternoon at 4:00 o’clock, the Architectural Review Committee is going to be examining proposed changes to Gilberts on the Wharf, the Black Bear Diner, and the Peninsula Fish Market. These projects will each affect their local neighborhoods, and since my agenda is to get more people involved in land use issues, I’m advertising this meeting as an interesting one for the residents of the City of Monterey.

For KUSP, this is Gary Patton.

More Information:

City of Monterey Website
http://www.monterey.org/

Architectural Review Committee Website
http://www.monterey.org/boards/arc.html

January 5, 2005 Agenda
http://www.monterey.org/boards/arc/
agendas/2005/0105arcagenda.pdf

“Land Use and the General Plan”
http://www.landwatch.org/pages/
publications.htm#generalplan

The Coyote Valley, located in the City of San Jose, is the place where CISCO Systems wanted to develop a new business park, creating something like 20,000 new jobs, with no new housing. Jurisdictions from Santa Cruz to Salinas protested the CISCO development, because it was so obvious that the City of San Jose was trying to keep the profitable business development for itself, while exporting the housing demand that would accompany the creation of all those new jobs.

Providing services to new housing actually costs a local community more than the new houses generate in additional tax revenue. Exporting housing demand is a great way for a job-generating city to make its neighboring jurisdictions help pay for the costs of new growth. The City of Salinas, which has grown so prodigiously, demonstrates the result of a development pattern that fails to balance jobs and housing. There are vast tracts of new houses in Salinas, looking a lot like the suburbs of San Jose, but the jobs stayed in San Jose, and the City of Salinas has now closed its local libraries. Its fiscal distress is directly related to its unbalanced growth.

At any rate, I started to say that the City of San Jose is now doing a new Specific Plan for the Coyote Valley, which is supposed to do a better job of balancing jobs and housing. There’s a meeting tonight at 6:30 p.m. Details are available on the KUSP website.

For KUSP, this is Gary Patton.

More Information:

City of San Jose Website
http://www.sanjoseca.gov/

Coyote Valley Background Materials
http://www.sanjoseca.gov/coyotevalley/

Greenbelt Alliance Website
http://www.greenbelt.org/

Greenbelt Information on Coyote Valley
http://www.greenbelt.org/regions/
southbay/camp_coyotevalley.html

California does not have a “statewide” set of planning policies. Instead, California has delegated planning decisions to local government. Each local government must have a General Plan, but the state doesn’t tell the local government what that General Plan has to accomplish. Saving the state’s farmland, for instance, might be thought of as a valid objective for the state of California. Nothing in state law, though, says that farmland has to be saved. If you’ve driven from the Central Coast to Sacramento, you’ll note the result.

There is an exception. In the Coastal Zone, the state does impose some very strict planning requirements. For instance, farmland protection is a priority in the Coastal Zone. The Coastal Zone isn’t very big (in Santa Cruz County it only goes to Highway One), so most of the Pajaro Valley and all of the Salinas Valley is outside its boundaries. Nonetheless, the Coastal Act does demonstrate what a statewide approach to land use planning might look like. It seems to look a lot better than what’s happening outside the Coastal Zone.

Thanks to an EPICenter alert from Environment in the Public Interest, located in San Luis Obispo, I can tell you that the Coastal Commission will be meeting next Wednesday to discuss, among other things, the possible development of a Liquefied Natural Gas, or LNG, Terminal, offshore. There’s more information at www.kusp.org.

For KUSP, this is Gary Patton.

More Information:

California Coastal Commission Home Page
http://www.coastal.ca.gov/

January 12, 2005 Coastal Commission Agenda
http://www.coastal.ca.gov/mtgcurr.html

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