The City of Santa Cruz is working on a broadly-supported strategy to deal with water supply. A study session was held on November 10th, and the Council is expected to take official action next Tuesday, November 24th. I have links at kusp.org/landuse, to guide you to information about a complex proposal from the City’s Water Supply Advisory Committee.

I also have a link to the agenda of a special meeting of the Technical Advisory Committee of the Monterey Peninsula Regional Water Authority. That meeting is taking place today, Monday, November 16th.

The Santa Cruz proposal would secure future water supplies by capturing water from the San Lorenzo River, during high rainfall events, and then storing that in groundwater aquifers for future use. As currently planned, the system would benefit not only the City, but also other water agencies. In Monterey County, future water supplies would be secured by what I sometimes call “manufacturing water.” The main proposal, the Monterey Peninsula Water Supply Project, would take in seawater near Marina, and then desalinate that seawater to meet the needs of the Monterey Peninsula. The proposed “Pure Water” project would treat sewage effluent, and then use that treated effluent to build up groundwater supplies.

All around the Monterey Bay, water supply issues remind me of one of those Facebook references to marital status: “It’s complicated!”

More Information:

• Land Use Links
• Gary Patton’s Two Worlds Blog
• City Of Santa Cruz Water Supply Advisory Committee Website
• WSAC Report And Technical Appendices
• Agenda – Special Meeting Of MPRWA Technical Advisory Committee
• Report On The Monterey Peninsula Water Supply Project
• Report On The “Pure Water” Groundwater Replenishment Project

Want to do some thinking about transportation planning? Tomorrow, Thursday November 19th, the Santa Cruz Regional Transportation Commission is holding a Workshop in the Veterans Memorial Building in downtown Santa Cruz. The meeting starts at 9:00 a.m., and you are very much invited. There’s a link to the agenda in today’s Land Use Report blog, found on the KUSP website. You can find a lot of other things on the KUSP website, too, and I invite you to browse around. KUSP has been making program changes, including changes that affect the Land Use Report, and I know that the station would like to have your listener feedback.

Agenda Item #6 on tomorrow’s Transportation Commission agenda is a discussion of a proposed November 2016 Transportation Ballot Measure. If you have been listening to the Land Use Report recently, you’ll know that the Commission is planning to ask the voters for authority to spend a lot of money on transportation improvements. This agenda item provides background on what might be proposed. Expenditures are suggested for neighborhood projects, highway widening, mobility access, rail corridor improvements, and the Monterey Bay Sanctuary Scenic Trail. The agenda packet includes poll results, with the pollsters saying that “a transportation sales tax has a very good chance of winning approval in the November 2016 election.”

More Information:

• Land Use Links
• Gary Patton’s Two Worlds Blog
• Contact KUSP – Listener Feedback
• Transportation Commission Agenda Packet

Yesterday, the Santa Cruz County Regional Transportation Commission discussed how best to convince Santa Cruz County voters to raise local sales taxes to fund transportation improvements. I have links to the Commission’s agenda packet at kusp.org/landuse. Presumably, voters aren’t going to raise their taxes unless they think they’re going to get some benefits, and one of the big items on everyone’s wish list, according to the pollsters who did a poll last May, is reducing congestion on Highway One.

I have no doubt that the polling is accurate about that concern. There is a problem, however. Identifying the priority doesn’t really tell us how to achieve the goal. If we had $113 million dollars to reduce Highway One congestion, which is what is being suggested, could we spend that money in a way that would, in fact, reduce congestion? As I noted last week on the Land Use Report, highway widening (seemingly an obvious solution) doesn’t really work. After a highway is widened, more people use the highway, illustrating what is called “induced demand.” The congestion stays just about the same. Money spent, but no progress made.

Really to reduce congestion, we need to reduce the number of vehicles on the highway at peak times. That means we need to find a way to share rides, through transit and other mechanisms. Learning to share, not more money, per se, is what can solve our problem.

More Information:

• Land Use Links
• Gary Patton’s Two Worlds Blog
• November 13, 2015 Land Use Report on Highway Widening
• Transportation Commission Agenda Packet – November 19th Workshop

How a community “does politics” has a big impact on land use policy, and land use policy has a profound impact on the local economy, the natural environment, and on the ability of the community to meet its social equity goals. The political culture of Santa Cruz County has long been recognized as “different,” in some more or less undefined way. That difference has sometimes been deplored, but it has been celebrated, too, as with those bumper stickers that tell us to “Keep Santa Cruz Weird.”

I have been thinking about this because of an appearance I made at the “Penny University.” This institution, now forty-one years old, is a gathering held at 5:00 p.m. on Monday, every week, at the Calvary Episcopal Church, in downtown Santa Cruz. The session I attended on November 9th had a particular impact on me. I had been asked to make a presentation, and ended up speculating about “What Is To Be Done?”

If we are worried about our future, local, state, national and global (as I think we are, and ought to be), we are not going to find the solution in any individualistic type approach. The “market” isn’t going to produce affordable housing, or full employment. We need to act “collectively.” That was the essence of my remarks. I think this collective approach to community problems is what makes Santa Cruz “different.” Weird and wonderful, in equal measure. As I say, maintaining that approach will have a big impact on land use.

More Information:

• Land Use Links
• Gary Patton’s Two Worlds Blog
• Sentinel News Story On Penny University
• Public Library History Of The Penny University
• Good Times Article On The Penny University
• Dr. Paul Lee Presents On Greek Philosophy At “The Penny”