The Santa Cruz City Council will be meeting both tomorrow afternoon and tomorrow evening, and there are a number of agenda items with land use policy implications. During its 3:00 o’clock session, the Council will consider a proposed “Action Plan” for the City’s Housing and Community Development Program. That’s Agenda Item #12. Much of the money, expected to be one the order of $700,000, will go to provide homeless services, but part will fund code enforcement efforts. Agenda Item #13, also scheduled for the afternoon agenda, will allow Council Members to consider a proposal from the visitors’ industry, which wants local governments from throughout the county to set up a “Tourism Marketing District.” As envisioned, this countywide District would provide a legal way to impose “assessments” on hotels and others who provide visitor accommodations. Over a million dollars a year would go to promote tourism, and this new source of money would be in addition to money from the City’s General Fund, already dedicated to that effort.

In the evening, the Council will hear testimony on a proposed ordinance modifying standards for Medical Marijuana Personal Provider Associations. Yes, this is an issue being addressed by the City through an exercise of its police powers, the same powers that allow the City to regulate land use! Links to more information are found below.

More Information:

City of Santa Cruz Website
http://www.cityofsantacruz.com/

City Council Agenda Packet
http://64.175.136.240/sirepub/cache/2/jyolr5fkw5at
ps55jzsvnb45/229247204242010082533572.PDF

Most land use regulations originate at the local level, but the state can definitely set land use standards if it wants to. Since agriculture is one of California’s most important businesses, you might expect that the state would set up some rules requiring the preservation of commercially valuable agricultural land.

Not so. Santa Cruz County has enacted a law that says, “prime agricultural lands, and lands which are economically productive when used for agriculture, shall be preserved for agricultural use.” Past efforts to do something similar at the state level have always been defeated by developer interests. Instead, the state has established a “voluntary” system to “incentivize” landowners to protect commercially productive agricultural land. It’s called the Williamson Act. It works by providing tax benefits to owners of agricultural land who will sign a voluntary, long-term contract preventing the non-agricultural use of their property. County governments play a key role, since they sign the contracts, and suffer tax loses when they do. County governments are willing to take the tax losses because the state has reimbursed them with Williamson Act subvention payments.

Now, the Governor wants to eliminate those payments, and the whole “voluntary” system is likely to crumble. There is a “Williamson Act Coalition,” trying to make sure that this doesn’t happen. If want to help, check out the links below.

More Information:

Santa Cruz County Website
http://www.co.santa-cruz.ca.us/

Santa Cruz County Code
http://www.codepublishing.com/ca/santacruzcounty/

County Code Chapter 17.01 contains the County’s growth management policy on agricultural land preservation

The California State Association of Counties (CSAC) is heading up the “Williamson Act Coalition,” which includes many environmental and agricultural groups. They will be holding a rally in Sacramento tomorrow. If you want to participate, contact Karen Keene at CSAC: (916) 327-7500, Ext. 511

CSAC resources
http://www.csac.counties.org/default.asp?id=273

The California Rangeland Conservation Coalition is also actively working on this issue –
http://www.carangeland.org/Files%20to%20Link/News/
2010/10-01%20Williamson%20Act%20
Letter%20to%20Governor.pdf

Here is a list of some upcoming events that may be of interest to KUSP listeners:

• This evening, at 5:30 p.m., the City of Santa Cruz, Greenspace, and the Resource Conservation District of Santa Cruz County will present a program called “Slow it, Spread it, Sink it!” It’s free, and will tell you how to retain stormwater runoff around your home. The presentation is at Greenspace, 1122 Soquel Avenue in Santa Cruz. Again, it’s this evening from 5:30 to 7:00 p.m.
  
  
• Tomorrow, employers can learn how to set up an effective commute management program for their employees. This, too, is a free event, and will tell employers how to develop a green commuting program that will actually save money on payroll taxes. The program will be held at the CSUMB University Center, from 9:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m.
  
  
• On May 1st, next Saturday, the Water Awareness Committee of Monterey County and other sponsors will host a “Water Awareness Day Celebration,” scheduled to run from 11:00 a.m. till 4:00 p.m. at the Del Monte Shopping Center in Monterey.

Our land use future does depend very much on what sort of regulations our local governments adopt. But it also depends on what we do individually. You can get more information on all of these events below.

More Information:

Slow It, Spread It, Sink It!
www.rcdsantacruz.org/media/other_news_content/
Greenspace_Presentation_042810.pdf

Commute Program Flyer
http://commutealternatives.info/userfiles/
Save%20the%20Date%20Flyer.pdf

Water Awareness Day
http://www.waterawareness.org/

Groundwater overdraft in the Pajaro Valley is putting the future of local agriculture at risk. We face what amounts to a massive environmental crisis, though one that is happening slowly, underground, where we can’t really see it. To address the crisis, the State Legislature established the Pajaro Valley Water Management Agency, in 1984, with a broad mandate to solve the problem. The Agency has been having a hard time doing that, and has faced particular challenges with respect to how to finance its efforts. In a Santa Cruz County Board of Supervisors’ meeting held about a month ago, there was open discussion of what might happen if the Agency went bankrupt. There’s an Agency crisis now, as well as an environmental crisis.

Dennis Osmer, one of the Directors of the Agency, has recently been quoted as saying that it might make sense to allow the Agency to import water and sell it to developers. Currently, state law prevents that. Section 710 of the state law establishing the Agency says, “no water shall be imported into the agency for other than agricultural purposes.” I’m proud to say that some people refer to this language as “the Patton clause.”

According to Osmer, repealing this provision of law would “broaden the funding base.” It would, but it would also allow developers to fund importation projects with the idea of converting agricultural land to subdivisions. There is more information below.

More Information:

Sentinel Story
http://www.santacruzsentinel.com/localnews/ci_14934308

PVWMA Establishing Act
http://www.pvwma.dst.ca.us/about_pvwma/assets/
Agency%20Act%20-%202009_Act%20760.PVWMA.pdf

Here’s a little something for the “techies.” This coming Wednesday, May 5th, the Association of Monterey Bay Area Governments will be hosting a workshop on “Technical Methodology for Regional Greenhouse Gas Emissions Targets.” The workshop will take place in the Marina Library Community Room, and will run from 1:00 p.m. to 3:00 p.m. The Library is located at 190 Seaside Circle, in Marina.

What’s this all about (for the non-techies among us)? Under Senate Bill 375, authored by State Senator Darrell Steinberg, the California Air Resources Board must develop regional reduction targets for greenhouse gas emissions. The law seeks to “incentivize” regional plans to reduce emissions from vehicle use throughout California. The state's eighteen Metropolitan Planning Organizations, or MPOs, have been required to create "Sustainable Community Strategies" to help accomplish this purpose. The MPOs are required to develop these Sustainable Community Strategies through integrated land use and transportation planning, and to demonstrate an ability to attain the proposed reduction targets by 2020 and 2035.

I have been skeptical of a plan to accomplish coordinated land use and transportation planning through a voluntary effort, but that’s what the State has decided. The “Greenhouse Gas Emission Targets,” once quantified, will drive the kind of land use and transportation policies needed.

More Information

AMBAG Website
http://www.ambag.org

For more information contact Linda Meckel at AMBAG
Email: lmeckel@ambag.org; Telephone: 831-883-3750

Information on SB 375 from the Southern California Association of Governments
http://www.scag.ca.gov/sb375/index.htm