If you’d like to learn a little bit about urban design, or if you are a resident of the City of Monterey, or both, there is a meeting coming up on Wednesday afternoon that might be of interest. The Monterey City Council will hold a Study Session on Wednesday, February 29th, from 4:00 to 6:00 p.m. The Council will hear a presentation on a Downtown Monterey Streetscape, Plaza and Urban Design Study, which is intended to help create a new vision for Downtown Monterey. At the study session, the Council will receive an extensive briefing on all of the various components that have gone into the study.

Those components include work done by Wald, Ruhnke & Dost Architects, and the Slavik Group. A transportation and parking firm has been working on a Citywide Transportation and Parking Study, and an economic development firm has been working to prepare a Financing Plan. These various work products will be integrated, ultimately, into an implementable Specific Plan for the Downtown area.

Sometimes, “planning” ends up being mostly about regulations. In this case, the planning going on is definitely intended to be “visionary” in its impact, motivating city elected officials, business leaders, and the public at large to help create something new in Monterey, while, I hope, maintaining the good things that are already there.

More Information:

• Gary Patton’s Blog: Two Worlds
• City of Monterey Meeting Agenda For Study Session on February 29, 2012
• Staff Report on Downtown Monterey Streetscape, Plaza and Urban Design Study

A week from tomorrow, the Santa Cruz Local Agency Formation Commission, or LAFCO, will decide whether or not to permit the City of Santa Cruz to extend its water service, to allow UCSC to build over 3,000,000 square feet of new buildings on the UCSC “North Campus.” The plan is to convert this 240-acre natural area into a densely populated academic neighborhood. While LAFCO doesn’t second-guess the University’s land use priorities, it does have the responsibility for deciding whether the City has the service capacity to provide adequate water. Obviously, the City doesn’t have any extra water; that’s why the Council wants to build a $100 million dollar desalination plant. The last time that LAFCO considered the matter, the Commission decided that it could only approve the extension of City water service if all that 3,000,000 square feet of new growth ended up being “water neutral.”

Today, the Santa Cruz City Council will consider a strategy that the City staff thinks can accomplish that result. I represent the Community Water Coalition, a community group that has been opposing this expansion of City water service. The CWC is skeptical. Federal and state agencies whose job it is to protect fish habitat also agree that this isn’t a good idea. If you’d like to review the City’s plans yourself, there’s a link to relevant materials in today’s transcript.

More Information:

• Gary Patton’s Blog: Two Worlds
• The Santa Cruz City Council Agenda, February 28, 2012
• The Proposed City Strategy is Agenda Item #16
• Proposed Resolution

Frequent listeners know that I am not at all reluctant to get up on the soapbox that they keep for me down here at the KUSP studios, urging you all to participate more in the local government proceedings that ultimately result in the land use policy and permit decisions that have such a profound impact on our local communities. I have also been known to pontificate a bit about the law, and to ask you all to look up “leginfo,” the state’s legal and legislative website, where you can find out what the state legislature has done, and is doing, both “to you” and “for you.”

Some listeners might actually like to take me up on the idea of learning more about the law. Young or old, some listeners might actually like to think about becoming lawyers themselves. I am providing a link in the transcript of today’s Land Use Report to the website of the Monterey College of Law. You can get a terrific law school education there without giving up your day job (though you will have to work really hard to do that), and it’s surprisingly affordable. The Bar Exam pass rate, last time around, was 80% for those Monterey College of Law students taking the Bar Exam for the first time. That’s pretty spectacular. I happen to be on the Board of Trustees, so I am somewhat biased, but if you are interested in becoming a lawyer, or simply learning more about the law, the Monterey College of Law may be worth checking into. There’s a Santa Cruz Campus, too!

More Information:

• Gary Patton’s Blog: Two Worlds
• Monterey College of Law Website
• Leginfo Website

Grassroots community action can make a big difference. In Monterey County, where the stakes are very high, the impact of grassroots community action in the land use arena has become quite clear. Within the last year or so, the lands of the former Fort Ord have been targeted for major development. The so-called “Whispering Oaks” project generated intense public involvement, including a successful petition drive to put a referendum on the ballot. That effort reversed a decision by the Board of Supervisors to cut down 3,000 to 4,000 oak trees to build a bus maintenance facility.

A citizen’s group called Keep Fort Ord Wild has filed suit to challenge the environmental review undertaken for a major new road on the lands of the former Fort Ord, and now grassroots activism is focusing in on the so-called “Monterey Downs” development. This development would take place under the aegis of the City of Seaside, not under the jurisdiction of the County Board of Supervisors, but this development, too, would result in a massive rearrangement of the natural environment on the former Army base, and thousands of oak trees would probably be put to the axe.

I invite listeners to find out more about proposed development projects on Fort Ord. The Environmental Impact Report process for the Monterey Downs development is just beginning, and there is lots of time to get involved. There are links in today’s transcript.

More Information:

• Gary Patton’s Blog: Two Worlds
• Monterey County Weekly Article on Monterey Downs Development
• Monterey County Herald Article on Monterey Downs Development
• Monterey County Weekly Article on Eastside Parkway Lawsuit
• Keep Fort Ord Wild Website

Residents of the Monterey Bay Region who are seriously concerned about water policy issues may already have bought their tickets for the California Water Policy Conference, scheduled for March 8th and 9th in Los Angeles. If you haven’t ever heard of this statewide gathering, but you are someone who is concerned about water policy, check out the transcript of today’s Land Use Report for more information. You probably should be considering a quick trip down south.

This conference is an annual event that focuses on all things water in the State of California. I believe that this year’s meeting is the 21st edition. The conference is sponsored by POWER - Public Officials for Water and Environmental Reform. POWER is the “environmental” side of the water establishment. It is an organization dedicated to promoting public accountability and environmentally sustainable water policies and practices. POWER members are not generally big fans of “desal,” for instance.

This year’s conference topics include the following:

• Going for Broke: Financing the Delta Fix
• Groundwater Overdraft: Are We Stealing from Our Future?
• Agricultural Water Use Efficiency
• Water Rights in a Climate-Changed California
• Science, Money and Politics: Can they Coexist?

I can tell you from personal experience, this is a meeting worth attending.

More Information:

• Gary Patton’s Blog: Two Worlds
• www.cawaterpolicy.org
• Contact Information:
  Email - info@CAwaterPolicy.org
  Telephone - 858-272-9627