If you would like to browse through a 480-page agenda packet, for today’s meeting of the Monterey County Water Resources Agency Board of Directors, I have a link below. If you’d like actually to attend today’s special meeting, the meeting starts at 1:00 p.m., in Salinas. There are lots of items on the Board’s agenda today, but three of them are particularly consequential.

First, Item #8F recommends that the Board sign off on a “Notice of Preparation” for an Environmental Impact Report for the Salinas Valley Water Project, Phase II, which will review how to allocate very significant water supplies available to the Agency through Water Rights Permit #11043. The future of the Salinas Valley may well depend on how the water rights granted in that permit are allocated.

Second, Item #8G would kick off a joint project with Santa Cruz County and the Army Corps of Engineers to upgrade the levies along the Pajaro River, to provide increased flood protection.

Finally, Item #8H proposes that the Board certify the Final EIR on the Salinas River Stream Maintenance Program, which has significant biological impacts.

You don’t have to review all 480 pages of today’s agenda packet to learn a lot more about these three important issues.

More Information

• Land Use Links
• Gary Patton’s Two Worlds Blog
• MCWRA Agenda Packet
• MCWRA Website

The Monterey County Board of Supervisors is meeting today, and will consider a couple of important water-related items. The items I am going to mention will be heard at 1:30 this afternoon.

Agenda Item #15 is a proposal that the Board contract with Brown and Caldwell, a consulting firm, to perform the Salinas River Groundwater Basin Zone 2C Study mentioned in the County’s 2010 General Plan. The General Plan prohibits new development in unincorporated areas in Monterey County, unless proof is provided that there is a long-term sustainable water supply. Obviously, that’s an important policy. There may be an exception, though, in Zone 2C, which encompasses the Salinas Valley and adjacent areas. The exception, if any, depends on what the Zone 2C groundwater study finds. The fate of the controversial Ferrini Ranch Subdivision, off Highway 68, may well depend on this study.

In Agenda Item #15.1, the Monterey County Water Resources Agency is proposing an “Interlake Tunnel Project” that could provide increased water security by linking the Nacimiento and San Antonio reservoirs. A contract to undertake preliminary engineering, design, water rights analysis, and program management would advance this possibility.

More information on these items can be found below.

More Information:

• Land Use Links
• Gary Patton’s Two Worlds Blog
• General Plan Policy and the Zone 2C Groundwater Study
• Ferrini Ranch Subdivision Draft EIR Discussion of Groundwater

A recent article in the Monterey County Weekly outlines how the Monterey Bay region has chosen to implement a state law that calls for new planning strategies to achieve “Sustainable Communities.” The purpose of the law, SB 375, authored by State Senator Darrell Steinberg in 2008, is to help cut back on the global warming emissions that are putting both the natural world and our human society in danger. Cutting down on vehicle miles traveled, or VMT, is a good way to do that. The Monterey Bay Area Plan, though, contemplates twenty years of what the Weekly calls “big growth,” suggesting that the population should grow by about twenty percent, during the period from 2010 to 2035, and that 96 different transportation projects should be implemented, most of them being road projects.

Also in the news, this time in an article in the Monterey Herald, is a report on the proposed conversion of Highway 156 into a private toll road, between Highway 101 and Castroville. According to the Herald, a good many North County residents don’t think this is a very good idea.

My suggestion, addressed not only to North County residents, but to all other interested persons, as well, is that now is a good time to get involved. If everyone waits until the last minute to present their views, they often find that’s too late.

More Information:

• Land Use Links
• Gary Patton’s Two Worlds Blog
• Monterey County Weekly Article on Transportation Planning
• Herald Article on Toll Roads
• SB 375 (2008)

Yesterday, I was talking about the numerous road projects proposed for the Monterey Bay Region in the next twenty years. Road projects are almost invariably costly, but the money we spend for these projects is supposed to make our lives better. Among other things, road projects are supposed to reduce traffic congestion, surely one of the banes of our modern, automobile-based existence.

As it turns out, though, the effectiveness of road projects, as a way to reduce traffic congestion, is highly suspect. I want to make sure that KUSP listeners know about the concept of “induced demand.” The idea is that new road projects actually increase, rather than decrease, traffic congestion. As Wired Magazine puts it in the headline for a recent article on this topic: “What’s Up With That: Building Bigger Roads Actually Makes Traffic Worse?”

If you’d like to read this article, and I do recommend it, there’s a link in today’s transcript, at kusp.org/landuse. It’s an easy to read introduction to the topic, which is also explored in numerous engineering studies. I have some links to those studies, too.

The fact that building bigger, wider roads might actually make things worse is counterintuitive, but it might actually be true!

What’s up with that? Read about “induced” traffic demand and find out more.

More Information:

• Land Use Links
• Gary Patton’s Two Worlds Blog
• Wired Magazine Article on Induced Demand
• Monterey County Weekly Article on Transportation Planning
• Victoria Transportation Policy Institute Article on Induced Demand
• Duranton and Turner: “The Fundamental Law of Road Congestion”

Last Friday at this time, I was telling you about the “Transfer of Development Rights” concept, and referred you to an article published by the Loma Prieta Chapter of the Sierra Club. The article is generally positive about the benefits of “TDR,” as the Transfer of Development Rights concept is often abbreviated. The Fourth of July is probably a pretty good day to provide a more critical commentary on TDR, since the whole concept is based on the idea that “property rights” means “development rights,” and there are some Constitutional questions there.

Actually, there are no “development rights,” in any general sense. Our Constitution forbids our government from “taking” our property without due process of law, and requires the government to pay for our property if it does take it for public use. But there is no Constitutional provision that says that the government must let us do whatever we want to do with the property we own. The “use” of property is always subject to governmental regulation in the public interest, so you can’t legally compel the government to give you permission to develop your property in the way that might benefit you the most. There is no general “development “right,” and since there isn’t, the concept of a “transfer of development rights” is based upon a fallacious premise.

Maybe I’ll come back to this topic one more time, in a future Land Use Report. What your “rights” are, as a property owner, is an important issue in land use and planning law.

More Information:

• Land Use Links
• Gary Patton’s Two Worlds Blog
• Land Use Report on TDR, June 27, 2014
• Sierra Club Loma Prieta Chapter Article on TDR