The California State Department of Transportation is usually called “Caltrans.” Caltrans oversees the construction and maintenance of California’s highway system on a “District” basis. Most KUSP listeners live in Caltrans’ District 5, which includes the counties of Santa Cruz, San Benito, Monterey, San Luis Obispo, and Santa Barbara.

If you check out the Caltrans’ District 5 website, you’ll find that Caltrans has big plans for new highway construction in San Benito County. A massive expansion of Highway 156 is on the list of projects that are speeding ahead towards construction.

Highway construction is almost always associated with new growth and development. It doesn’t make sense to invest hundreds of millions of dollars in roads unless you maximize their use. Therefore, it should be clear that what is proposed for San Benito County is not just new roads, but the total transformation of the county from a rural, agricultural area into a massive new staging ground for residential growth.

Do you like that quaint little town of San Juan Bautista? Do you like to visit Manny Santana’s restaurant, Jardines de San Juan? Do you like that lazy-feeling Cabrillo Music Festival event held each summer at the Mission? Stand by to watch it all be transformed. Or, you can get involved to change Caltrans’ direction!

For KUSP, this is Gary Patton.

More Information

Caltrans Home Page
http://dot.ca.gov/

Map of the Caltrans Districts
http://dot.ca.gov/localoffice.htm

Caltrans District 5 Website
http://www.dot.ca.gov/dist05/projects/#sbt

You can get comprehensive information on the proposed Highway 156 Project by clicking on the “San Benito Route 156” icon at
http://dot.ca.gov/dist05/projects/#sbt

For a particularly graphic depiction of what’s planned for San Benito County, click on the “Mobility Partnership State Route 152 Presentation” at
http://www.sanbenitocog.org/

The Monterey County Board of Supervisors is not meeting today, but it will meet next Tuesday, July 22nd. If you care about the future of Monterey County, you should probably plan to be in Salinas for the Board meeting next week.

The Monterey County Board of Supervisors is overseeing a comprehensive revision of the Monterey County General Plan, which acts as the “Constitution for land use” for Monterey County. The General Plan revision effort began in 1999, and has probably cost ten million dollars. The Board is currently working on the fifth revision of the plan. A new draft Environmental Impact Report will be forthcoming shortly; then, there will be comments, responses to comments, public hearings, and eventual action. Absent extraordinary efforts, it’s likely that this process will come to an end in early 2009.

However, if the current schedule is followed, appointed incumbent Supervisor Ila Mettee-McCutchon, who is considered “pro-development,” and who was defeated in her bid for a permanent place on the Board, will have been replaced by Supervisor-elect Jane Parker. Last week, development interests showed up at the Board, to ask the Board to shorten the public process, to make sure that Mettee-McCutchon can vote. That’s the issue to be considered on July 22nd: Will public participation be cut back, to give the development interests in the County a better shot at a pro-development document?

For KUSP, this is Gary Patton.

More Information

The agenda for the Monterey County Board of Supervisors can be reviewed at
http://monterey.granicus.com/
ViewPublisher.php?view_id=5

AB 32 commits California to cut back global warming emissions to 1990 levels by the year 2020. The program to accomplish this is to be developed by the California State Air Resources Board, or ARB.

One of the key steps in the implementation process is for the ARB to produce a “scoping plan,” outlining how it plans to achieve the required reductions. A “draft” scoping plan has now been released, and public workshops will soon be held to take public comment. The ARB is also asking for written comments. I’ve placed some reference materials in the transcript to today’s Land Use Report, and I encourage you to get personally involved, and to comment on the draft scoping plan.

If you’d like to make comments in person, a workshop will be held in San Jose on August 8th.

Emissions related to land use and transportation account for about 30% of California’s global warming emissions. This reflects our dysfunctional land use system that actually promotes sprawl. The kind of highway projects I mentioned in Monday’s Land Use Report are part of the problem. And, of course, those kinds of investments in sprawl are not inevitable; we could change them.

The draft scoping plan looks only for a 2% reduction in emissions from the land use and transportation sectors, indicating that the ARB doesn’t want to take on sprawl as a cause of global warming. Hopefully, listeners to the Land Use Report might want to comment on that!

For KUSP, this is Gary Patton.

More Information

The ARB homepage
http://www.arb.ca.gov/homepage.htm

The draft scoping plan
http://www.arb.ca.gov/cc/scopingplan/
document/draftscopingplan.htm

Submit public comments
http://www.arb.ca.gov/cc/
scopingplan/spcomment.htm

Public workshop schedule
http://www.arb.ca.gov/cc/scopingplan/
meetings/meetings.htm

The text of AB 32
http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/cgi-bin/postquery?
bill_number=ab_32&sess=PREV&
house=B&author=nunez

Tonight, at 7:00 o’clock, the City of Santa Cruz Planning Commission will be meeting at the Santa Cruz City Hall. The Commission will be considering what sort of future developments should be promoted in the Golf Club Drive area, near the bottom of Pogonip, just off Highway 9. Additionally, the Commission is going to be looking at the future development of the “Swenson Property.” In other words, the City Planning Commission is going to be considering the City’s overall planning policies with respect to very specific areas of the City. The comments and suggestions of local neighbors and City residents are very much in order.

Next Tuesday, July 22nd, also at 7:00 p.m., the City Council will be holding a public hearing on the proposed development of the large area located at 2120 Delaware Avenue, on the City’s Westside. Again, this will really be an examination of how general City planning policies should be applied to that specific geographic area within the City. The proposal is for a very large “mixed use” development that will include both jobs and housing. It sounds like an innovative idea, with lots of positive possibilities, but many Westside neighbors are worried about the 5,000-plus new vehicle trips that would likely be generated by the development.

The Planning Commission’s role is “advisory.” The City Council is the last stop on policy matters. If you’re interested in the future of these specific areas within the City, don’t miss these meetings!

For KUSP, this is Gary Patton.

More Information

City of Santa Cruz website
http://www.ci.santa-cruz.ca.us/
Information on the City Council and Planning Commission can be obtained from the City website.

If you are concerned about the proposed Delaware Avenue development, and would like to get involved, you can contact Citizens to Preserve the Westside at westsidecitizens@gmail.com.

On Monday, I reported on several proposed highway projects in San Benito County that could ultimately put agriculture out of business. As the infrastructure to support residential and commercial uses is provided (often at public expense), landowners find that it makes economic sense to them, personally, to transform their farmlands into shopping centers and subdivisions. Almost everywhere in California, this formula for sprawl has been the predominant land use paradigm. In a few places, like Santa Cruz County, the voters have used the initiative or referendum process to impose limits on future development, and have short-circuited this seemingly inevitable progression from farmland to sprawl.

While voter imposed restrictions are the most certain and effective way to protect agricultural land, this approach is politically difficult. Another strategy, without the political drawbacks, is to pay landowners for their “development rights.”

The Silicon Valley Land Conservancy, a nonprofit whose mission is to preserve land in Santa Clara County and adjacent areas, has just won a $2.2 million grant to put an agricultural easement on 540-acres of farmland in San Benito County. This means that the Silicon Valley Land Conservancy will own the development rights to the land, and even if the land changes hands, it must still be used for agricultural purposes. That’s good news!

For KUSP, this is Gary Patton.

More Information

Article in The Pinnacle News, “Protection From Development” –
http://www.pinnaclenews.com/
news/contentview.asp?c=246411

There are two main drawbacks to a strategy that relies on the purchase of “development rights” as a way to preserve agricultural land. First, this is a voluntary approach, so it won’t work on properties where the landowner wants to develop, and is unwilling to sell his or her development rights. Second, and perhaps even more important, there is never enough money to preserve all the lands that need to be protected. In the San Benito County case mentioned in this Land Use Report, it cost $2.2 million dollars to protect 540 acres, or a little over $4,000 per acre. The State Department of Conservation says that there are about 674,000 acres of agricultural land in San Benito County, so it would cost about $3.5 billion to save it all, at that per acre price