In Monterey County, various public agencies have gone behind closed doors to devise a set of agreements that would launch a new “Regional Water Project” involving not only the Monterey Peninsula, where the Water District is under an order to reduce pumping from the Carmel River, but also “growth areas” in Marina and elsewhere.

The Monterey Herald has urged that there be more public review, before there is any definite public commitment. A link to the Herald Editorial is in the transcript of today’s Land Use Report. It’s definitely worth reading.

The “good news” is that a concrete solution to a very daunting problem has now been proposed. Basically, it is a big desalination plant to be located in Marina. However, the financial arrangements seem to saddle water customers on the Monterey Peninsula with water costing $3,000 an acre foot or more, while customers of the Marina Coast Water District are going to pay $150 an acre foot, or less.

The Monterey Peninsula Water Management District votes this morning. The County Water Resources Agency will vote this afternoon. Their meeting starts at 1:00 o’clock. The County Board of Supervisors will consider the proposal tomorrow. The State Public Utilities Commission will have hearings in May, with the PUC expected to make a final decision by the end of the year.

More Information:
Monterey County Herald Editorial
http://www.montereyherald.com/opinion/ci_14798996?nclick_check=1

Monterey County Weekly Articles
(1) http://www.montereycountyweekly.com/archives/2010/
2010-Apr-01/regional-desal-project-agreement-could-double-
peninsula-water-rates/1/@@index

(2) http://www.montereycountyweekly.com/archives/2010/
2010-Apr-01/peninsula-water-district-board-divided-on-regional
-water-project-agreement/1/@@index

Monterey County Board of Supervisors Agenda
http://publicagendas.co.monterey.ca.us/

Monterey Peninsula Water Management Agenda
http://www.mpwmd.dst.ca.us/asd/board/boardpacket/
2010/20100405/20100405agenda.htm

Monterey County Water Resources Agency Agenda
http://www.mcwra.co.monterey.ca.us/BOD/BOD/agenda/
Regional%20Water%20Project%20BOS%20Item,%20April
%206,%202010/Regional%20Water%20Project%20BOS%20
Item,%20April%206,%202010.htm

As reported last week, the Monterey County General Plan Update, Version #5, is headed towards a round of public hearings. Before I tell you the currently scheduled dates for those hearings, however, let me alert residents of San Luis Obispo County to a General Plan hearing taking place this very afternoon. The San Luis Obispo County Board of Supervisors will be continuing its discussion and debate on a proposed revision of the Conservation and Open Space Element of the San Luis Obispo County General Plan. If you happen to hear this Land Use Report, and care about the future of San Luis Obispo County, know that today may be your last chance to make your views known.

In Monterey County, the Planning Commission is ready to start taking public testimony on GPU5, the latest version of a proposed complete rewrite of the Monterey County General Plan. Since the current General Plan was adopted in 1982, and since the General Plan is supposed to be reviewed and revised every five years, this update is obviously overdue.

Planning Commission hearings are currently set for April 14th, April 28th, May 12th, and May 26th. Thereafter, the Commission will take action and send a proposed General Plan Update to the Board of Supervisors. There is ample time, in other words, to get involved in helping to draft the next “Constitution for land use” in Monterey County. I hope you’ll seize the opportunity.

More Information:

Monterey County General Plan Update Website
http://www.co.monterey.ca.us/planning/gpu/GPU_2007/gpu_2007.htm

San Luis Obispo County Board of Supervisors Agenda
http://slocounty.granicus.com/GeneratedAgendaViewer.php?
view_id=2&event_id=59

Proposed Conservation And Open Space Element
http://www.slocounty.ca.gov/planning/General_Plan__
Ordinances_ and_Elements/Plans_in_Process_and_Draft_
Plans/Conservation_Element.htm

CEQA, or the California Environmental Quality Act, is California’s most significant environmental protection law. It’s not just an anti- air pollution law, or an anti- water pollution law, or an anti- toxics law, or an anti- global warming law. It’s all of those, and more. CEQA says that when any governmental agency wants to take any action that might have an adverse environmental impact, it must go through an environmental review process that allows the public to participate. Public participation is the key. CEQA helps guarantee that the governmental agencies that are supposed to represent the public actually do represent the public. The public gets to comment on the agency’s draft environmental review document, and the agency must take public comments seriously, and respond to them substantively. If the agency doesn’t do that, the courts will make them do that.

The oil companies, and the developers, and even some governmental agencies, which think they know what’s right for the public better than members of the public themselves, really hate CEQA. So, the CEQA-haters are going to try to use the initiative process to eliminate, as a practical matter, any enforcement of CEQA by members of the public, or by environmental and neighborhood groups.

You can read the proposed language on the Attorney General’s website. My advice: don’t sign the petition!

More Information:

CEQA
http://ceres.ca.gov/ceqa/

The best publication with CEQA case studies is PCL’s Everyday Heroes
http://www.pcl.org/projects/everydayheroes.html

Anti-CEQA Initiative Measure, sponsored by several oil companies
http://ag.ca.gov/cms_attachments/initiatives/pdfs/
i914_initiative_10-0008.pdf

AG’s Title and Summary, recently released
http://ag.ca.gov/cms_attachments/initiatives/pdfs/
i914_title_and_summary_final_10-0008.pdf

This evening, LandWatch Monterey County is sponsoring an after work event, from 5:00 to 6:30, at the Montrio Bistro, located at 414 Calle Principal, in downtown Monterey. Debbie Hale, the Executive Director of the Transportation Agency for Monterey County, will be discussing how local governments can use the provisions of SB 375 to develop “sustainable communities strategies” that will lead to more compact, transit-oriented development patterns.

I tend to be a skeptic, where SB 375 is concerned, since the bill (now part of state law) doesn’t really “require” any changes in land use policy. It is based on the idea that “voluntary” changes in land use policy can be “encouraged,” and that local governments will set aside past patterns of development that encourage sprawl, and move towards the more “sustainable” strategies that obviously make more economic and environmental sense.

I’m not going to be able to be at the LandWatch event, but I do encourage Monterey County residents to attend, and to get engaged in an effort to connect up transportation policy with better land use policy. If the Transportation Agency wanted to do it, for instance, it could provide transportation funding only to local governments that adopted and maintained a responsible urban limit line. Is that too radical a thought?

More Information:

LandWatch Website
http://www.landwatch.org

For more information, contact Amy White at 831-422-9384, or by email at: awhite@mclw.org

The Fort Ord Reuse Authority, or FORA, oversees the “redevelopment” of lands that were formerly part of the Fort Ord Military Base, and that are now located in the cities of Marina, Seaside, Del Rey Oaks, and in unincorporated portions of Monterey County. This afternoon, the FORA Board of Directors will be meeting, and will consider, as “Old Business,” the FORA Habitat Conservation Plan, provisions of which greatly affect future developments on the former Military Base, and AB 1791, a bill introduced for FORA by Assembly Member Bill Monning.

AB 1791 would modify provisions of the state’s redevelopment law, which permits subsidies to be provided only for genuine “redevelopment.” As contemplated in current state law, a Redevelopment Agency (like FORA) can’t provide direct assistance to develop previously undeveloped land, where the assistance would transform such undeveloped land to a use that would generate sales or use taxes. The idea is that “redevelopment” assistance should be provided only on lands that have previously been developed, and that need to be transformed into a new use, as a way to counteract blight. Unblighted, undeveloped lands aren’t in the mix.

AB 1791, if enacted, would change that rule for the Fort Ord Reuse Authority. You can get the details in the transcript of today’s Land Use Report.

More Information

FORA Website
http://www.fora.org/

Agenda for April 9, 2010 Meeting
http://www.fora.org/Board/2010/Apr%209%20agda.pdf

AB 1791
http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/pub/09-10/bill/asm/ab_1751-1800/
ab_1791_bill_20100210_introduced.html

Health and Safety Code Section 33426.5, the operation of which would be eliminated by provisions of AB 1791
http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/cgi-bin/displaycode?section=hsc&
group=33001-34000&file=33420-33426.7