The Board of Directors of the Marina Coast Water District meets tonight. There is a link to the agenda in today’s Land Use Report blog, at kusp.org/landuse. The Land Use Report blog not only contains a written transcript of the day’s Land Use Report, but also provides links to additional materials. Today’s posting has a link to what I said about the Board of Directors’ meeting held last Monday. That was a "Special Meeting," and one of the big items was going to be a discussion of whether or not the Marina Coast Water District should submit a comment letter on the Monterey Peninsula Water Supply Project Draft Environmental Impact Report.

If you are paying attention, you will be aware that there is what might be called "bad blood" between the Marina Coast Water District and the California American Water Company, the private water supplier that is proposing the Monterey Peninsula Water Supply Project. In fact, Cal-Am and the County’s Water Resources Agency have just recently filed a lawsuit seeking to make the Marina Coast Water District pay Cal-Am and the County Water Resources Agency something like ten million dollars.

As I noted last week, the content of this possible EIR comment letter could be rather important, but again, just like last week, the District has not made the actual draft letter available online. Show up tonight if you want to find out what’s going on!

More Information

• Land Use Links
• Gary Patton’s Two Worlds Blog
• Marina Coast Water District Website
• Agenda: June 29, 2015 Board Meeting
• Minutes: June 29, 2015 Board Meeting
• Agenda: July 6, 2015 Board Meeting
• The June 29, 2015 Land Use Report
• Monterey Herald Article On Lawsuit

Buckle your seatbelts and head on down to the Monterey County Governmental Center if you’d like to keep up with what the Monterey County Board of Supervisors is doing on land use. There are lots of land use related items on today’s agenda.

Agenda Item #21 will be a presentation on the 2014 Crop Report. The Crop Report is going to show that Monterey County agriculture generated 8.1 billion dollars last year for the Monterey County economy. That’s a pretty good argument for not converting agricultural land into subdivisions and shopping malls. Incidentally, the County’s Development Review Committee is going to be meeting today, too, from 8:30 to 9:30 this morning, and will be considering a proposal related to the so-called "Yanks Air Museum," which would pretty much be an air-themed shopping mall constructed on prime agricultural land adjacent to Highway 101 near Greenfield.

Item #24 is an appeal of an environmental determination giving Trio Petroleum permission to do production testing for oil and gas in South Monterey County. Item #25 is a proposed emergency ordinance to prohibit the collective cultivation of medical marijuana. This has been a big issue in Santa Cruz County, and that County’s regulations have been challenged by a voter referendum.

This is only a "partial listing" of land use related items on today’s agenda. Think about attending!

More Information:

• Land Use Links
• Gary Patton’s Two Worlds Blog
• Monterey County Agenda Website
• Historical Record of Monterey County Crop Reports
• Monterey Herald News Article on 2014 Crop Report
• Yanks Air Museum Proposal
• Monterey County Weekly News Article on Medical Marijuana Regulation
• Development Review Committee Brochure
• The Development Review Committee meets in the Asilomar Room (2nd Floor) at 8:30 a.m.

Traditionally, we have tended to think of housing as an "individual" problem. In other words, everyone needs to find housing on an "individual" basis. How you find housing is "your" problem, not "my" problem or "our" problem. This preference for an "individual" approach goes along with the idea that the "market" will act like that famous "invisible hand," matching needed goods with adequate supplies, at affordable prices.

Historically, we have taken the same approach to health care, but it hasn’t worked, which is why our country has recently come, late to the game, to the idea that there needs to be some sort of "community" effort on health care. We have ultimately decided that individuals really can’t do it completely on their own, so now we have a system (convoluted though it might be) that attempts to mobilize our collective resources to address health care problems that have traditionally been seen as "individual" problems.

The "market" isn’t working in the area of affordable housing, either, and perhaps it’s time to admit that affordable housing is, in fact, "our" problem. It’s not a problem that can be addressed completely individually. We need to find ways to mobilize our collective resources, if we are going to have a just and economically sustainable society.

This evening, the Monterey County Housing Advisory Committee is meeting, to consider the County’s Draft Housing Element. Think about weighing in with your thoughts!

More Information:

• Land Use Links
• Gary Patton’s Two Worlds Blog
• Housing Advisory Committee Website
• July 8, 2015 HAC Agenda

Here is a kind of "mark your calendars" ahead item. Seven days from today, on Thursday, July 16th, the City of Marina will be hosting a community meeting to consider a proposed "roundabout" to be located at the intersection of Beach Road and Del Monte Boulevard in the City of Marina. The bulletin I read said that "more information will be forthcoming," so I don’t have much to tell you about the specifics, except for the date, and time, and place of what I think could be an important meeting.

To get specific, I’m suggesting that Marina residents might want to mark their calendars for a meeting that will be held from 6:30 to 9:00 p.m. on Thursday, July 16th, at the Marina City Council Chambers, located at 211 Hillcrest Avenue in Marina.

In today’s blog posting, I’ve put links to some resources about "roundabouts." Modern transportation planning promotes roundabouts as a good alternative to signalized intersections, permitting a more efficient traffic flow even at intersections where there is a pretty considerable amount of traffic. If you have ever driven back East, you may have run into roundabouts, since they tend to be a bit more popular there than on the West Coast. They are coming into style here, too, though, and if you want to see a roundabout in real life, you can come to the City of Santa Cruz and try out the new roundabout at the Municipal Wharf, or the roundabout located at the intersection of Front Street and Center Street.

More Information:

• Land Use Links
• Gary Patton’s Two Worlds Blog
• Marina Announcement of July 16th Meeting
• Santa Cruz City News – Wharf Roundabout
• Modern Roundabout Intersections: When To Use Them
• Picturing A Roundabout

On Tuesday, August 18th, the Public Policy Institute of California, generally known as PPIC, is going to be hosting a meeting in Monterey. The topic couldn’t be more important: "Meeting Water Challenges on the Central Coast."

I have links to the PPIC website in today’s transcript, found at kusp.org/landuse. I have even provided a link to the PPIC Events Page. However, this meeting is still so far in the future that it doesn’t yet show up on the events page. Because the topic is of such central importance to the Monterey Bay Region, I thought I’d better put out this "early warning" announcement. If you want to attend, you can put it on your calendar, to remind you not to schedule some sort of summer evening jaunt on that Tuesday, August 18th.

The event will take place at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey, located at 499 Pierce Street in Monterey. It’s a one and a half hour briefing, starting at 6:00 p.m., followed by a reception with refreshments. Paul Rogers, environmental writer for the San Jose Mercury, will moderate a panel including Congress Member Sam Farr, Monica Hunter, who helped make the Carmel River dam removal project a reality, and John Laird, Secretary of Natural Resources for the State of California. Jason Burnett, Mayor of Carmel, is slated to provide closing remarks.

More Information:

• Land Use Links
• Gary Patton’s Two Worlds Blog
• PPIC Website
• PPIC Events Page