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KUSP LandWatch
News
Week of February 19, 2007 to February 23, 2007
Week of February 19, 2007 to February 23, 2007
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 February 19, 2007 to February 23, 2007
- Monday, February 19, 2007
The Coast Aerial Project
- Tuesday, February 20, 2007
The Monterey County Court Case
- Wednesday, February 21, 2007
Hollister Condos
- Thursday, February 22, 2007
Agriculture at the Metro Edge / Mushrooms
- Friday, February 23, 2007
An Inconvenient Truth
The following Land Use Reports have been presented on KUSP Radio by Gary A. Patton. The Wittwer & Parkin law firm is located in Santa Cruz, California, and practices environmental and governmental law. As part of its practice, the law firm files litigation and takes other action on behalf of its clients, which are typically private individuals, governmental agencies, environmental organizations, or community groups. Whenever the Land Use Report comments on an issue with which the Wittwer & Parkin law firm is involved on behalf of a client, Mr. Patton will make this relationship clear, as part of his commentary. Mr. Patton’s comments do not represent the views of Wittwer & Parkin, LLP, KUSP Radio, nor of any of its sponsors.
| Monday, February 19, 2007 The Coast Aerial Project |
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Good land use planning is ever more related to various kinds of modern technologies. GIS mapping is just one of them. GIS is short for “Geographic Information Systems,” and is defined as “a collection of computer hardware, software, and geographic data for capturing, managing, analyzing, and displaying all forms of geographically referenced information.” You can get a good idea of the power of GIS by checking out the Santa Cruz County website, which makes an amazing amount of land use information available to the public, through the use of GIS techniques. Google Earth is another great example. If you’re interested in planning, and land use, and are thinking of a career, you could do worse than move into this up and coming field of endeavor. AMBAG, the Association of Monterey Bay Area Governments, is dedicated to promoting the effective use of GIS by local agencies. They’re advertising an internship program, and they are also asking local governments in the Central Coast Region if they would like to participate in a “Coast Aerial Project,” to develop photographic information to be integrated into local government GIS databases. Links to all this information are found below. For KUSP, this is Gary Patton.
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| Tuesday, February 20, 2007 The Monterey County Court Case |
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A week from today, Federal District Court Judge James Ware will be addressing, once again, the question of whether or not the voters of Monterey County should be allowed to vote on initiative and referendum measures which have qualified for the ballot in terms of getting the right number of signatures, but that the County Government has kept off the ballot, allegedly because the petitions weren’t circulated in Spanish. If you’d like to attend the hearing, there are directions on the KUSP website. I’ve had an opportunity to read all the briefs that will be before the Court next Tuesday, and I believe that the law is pretty clear that the Federal Voting Rights Act does not require either referendum or initiative petitions to be circulated in languages other than English. If that were a requirement, it would pretty much be impossible, under the deadlines and procedures specified in state law, for the people ever to exercise their Constitutional right to challenge local government decisions through a referendum, or to legislate directly by initiative. Now this rule changes if and when enough signatures are gathered to put an initiative or referendum on the ballot. There’s no doubt that the actual measure that goes to a vote must be translated. Both the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals and the Congress have spoken on this matter, and I think it’s clear that both the Court and the Congress agree with what I just said. Monterey County, however, is continuing to fight the people’s right to vote. For KUSP, this is Gary Patton.
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| Wednesday, February 21, 2007 Hollister Condos |
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Last night, the Hollister City Council discussed whether or not to impose a brief, 45-day moratorium on condominium conversions, or “condo conversions” as they’re often called, while the City thinks carefully about what it wants to do in this area. Multi-family residences are rental properties. They provide housing opportunities for persons who either cannot or who do not want to own their own residence. When existing apartments are changed to ownership units, through the condominium conversion process, rental-housing opportunities are reduced, and home ownership opportunities are increased. The usual impact is to displace lower income persons, by depriving them of their existing rental units, as those units are then sold to the higher income persons who can afford to buy them. There are a number of other issues, as well, when apartments are turned into condominiums and sold separately, since parking requirements, design, and other standards may be quite different. A year or so ago, the City of Santa Cruz faced a decision about a proposed condominium conversion of a new apartment complex located on Water Street, and came down on the side of retaining the lower income apartment opportunities. If you’re from the Silicon Valley side of the hill, you may have an interest in what the City of Hollister decides to do. You can get additional information below. For KUSP, this is Gary Patton.
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| Thursday, February 22, 2007 Agriculture at the Metro Edge / Mushrooms |
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Tomorrow, and Saturday and Sunday, there will be a three-day celebration entitled the “Big Sur Chanterelle Cook-Off,” to be held at the Big Sur Lodge, and promoted by the Pelican Network. If you’re a mushroom lover, or a Big Sur lover, this is an event you might like to take in. Let me alert you, as well, to another opportunity to think about food and open space. On April 5th and 6th, the University of California at Berkeley will be hosting a public symposium on “Agriculture at the Metropolitan Edge: New Ruralism and Other Urban-Rural Sustainability Strategies.” Please note, I’m giving you over a month to clear your calendars, and to participate in what I think will be an important discussion. The goal of the Symposium is to focus attention on the importance of agricultural lands within the regional metropolitan framework; the environmental and other benefits of ecological agriculture; and to discuss socio-economic issues at the urban edge, and specifically the interdependence of urban and rural land and communities. For the Central Coast, these issues are critically important. How can we build a sustainable agricultural economy and a sustainable food production system, in the face of the tremendous growth pressures we’re experiencing? More information about both these events is available below. For KUSP, this is Gary Patton.
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| Friday, February 23, 2007 An Inconvenient Truth |
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“An Inconvenient Truth,” featuring former Vice President Al Gore, has been nominated for an Academy Award, as the best documentary feature film of the year. If you haven’t yet seen “An Inconvenient Truth,” I hope you’ll do so right away, so you can fully appreciate the Oscar ceremony. If you have seen the film, you’ll remember it ends with a series of suggestions about what we can actually do, ourselves. One thing we can do is to get involved with land use policy! Global warming and land use have a direct connection, and our ability to meet the challenges posed by global warming will require us to modify our patterns of land use and development, since the kind of sprawling growth we’ve been allowing has led to a massive increase in Vehicle Miles Traveled (or VMT) which means more fossil fuel consumption, and more greenhouse gas emissions. We need to reverse this trend, and we don’t have lots of time to do so. The Climate Project, working closely with Al Gore, has been providing training to community organizers, giving them the tools to help local communities around the United States do something effective about global warming. Carl Zichella, a Sierra Club lobbyist I work with in Sacramento, has recently completed this training in Nashville, Tennessee. If you are affiliated with a local group that would like, seriously, to be trained on global warming issues, let me know, and I’ll put you in touch with Carl. For KUSP, this is Gary Patton.
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Archives of past transcripts are available here
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