KUSP LandWatch News
Week of July 5, 2004 to July 9, 2004

Important planning decisions are being made in both Greenfield and King City. These two smaller communities are located in the southern part of the Salinas Valley, and residential developers are finding it increasingly attractive to build major new housing developments there. Because land costs are less, housing built in southern Monterey County can be sold for less than the same kind of housing would cost in Salinas, or on the Monterey Peninsula. Those lower housing costs in southern Monterey County make housing developments there attractive to purchasers. The problem, of course, is that the purchasers often work somewhere else. That means long commutes for the new homeowners, and more environmental, traffic, and fiscal impacts for the public at large.

California’s suburban sprawl has largely been driven by a race to build lower cost housing at the furthest periphery of major employment centers. The phenomenon is affecting all of Monterey County, and even the cities of Greenfield and King City.

In King City, the Planning Commission will consider a major residential development at their meeting tomorrow. The Commission will meet at 6:00 p.m. at the City Hall in King City. In Greenfield, the city has just announced the start of its environmental review process on a proposed new General Plan. In the very short term, and in the longer term, major decisions, affecting the future of all of Monterey County, are now being made in these South County cities. For KUSP, this is Gary Patton.

More Information:

King City Website
http://www.kingcity.com/index.shtml

King City Planning Commission Agenda
http://www.kingcity.com/webdata/uploads/1088812280_Agenda
_pc070604forplanningcommission.pdf

Greenfield Website
http://ci.greenfield.ca.us/

Last Tuesday, a group of sixteen different community organizations announced a series of open, public forums, to help develop a “Community General Plan Update” for Monterey County. Self-help planning is coming to the County’s GPU process.

Monterey County began updating its General Plan in 1999. In April of this year, five years and $5 million dollars later, the Monterey County Planning Commission finished its review of the third draft of the General Plan Update, and sent its recommendations to the Board of Supervisors. Normally, the Board would then have set these recommendations for a public hearing, and after hearing from the public would have made any changes the Board thought were appropriate, and then adopted a new General Plan.

Instead, at the request of business, development, and landowner representatives, three members of the Board voted to discard the results of their five-year, $5 million dollar process, and completely “start over.” The Board terminated the staff that had been working on the GPU, and assigned the County Counsel to head up a completely new effort. Instead of a fully public process, the Board directed a series of private “stakeholder” meetings, as a way to develop policy recommendations for the Board.

Last week, community groups said, in essence, that this “will not stand,” and have taken it upon themselves to make sure that the public is not shut out of the General Plan process in Monterey County.
For KUSP, this is Gary Patton.

More Information:

Community GPU Forums
http://www.landwatch.org/pages/issuesactions/
countyplan/070204community.html

In 1999, the United States Congress authorized a Special Resource Study and Environmental Assessment of Fort Hunter Liggett, located in southern Monterey County. The study was initiated by the National Park Service in the summer of 2000, and a draft of the study has just been released for public review and comment. This evening, at 7:00 o’clock, the National Park Service will present the study at a meeting to be held at the San Lorenzo Middle School Auditorium, 415 Pearl Street in King City. An additional public meeting will be held on Saturday, in Salinas. You are very much invited to attend either or both of these meetings, and you can also make comments in writing, if you get them to the National Park Service by August 6th.

The Special Resource Study is well worth reading. Both historic resources and natural resources abound on this property, and the report does a pretty good job of documenting them. It also presents some possible “management options,” which may be the most important part of the Study. If (or perhaps it’s more accurate to say “when”) the United States government decides that it no longer needs to maintain Fort Hunter Liggett as a military installation, some interesting options will be presented. Hopefully, Central Coast residents will be deeply involved in helping to make the right choice for the future. You can get more information at www.kusp.org.

For KUSP, this is Gary Patton.

More Information:

Special Resource Study
http://www.nps.gov/pwro/fhl/

The public meeting scheduled for Saturday, July 10, 2004 will be held at the Hartnell College Commons, Room HCC 116, located at 156 Homestead Avenue in Salinas.

In January 2003, all state “waivers” under California’s clean water law expired, including a twenty-year old agricultural discharge waiver. This month, the Central Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board is expected to take action on a new regulatory program affecting something like 2,500 Central Coast farmers.

Agricultural discharges do have the potential to cause significant environmental damage, not only to groundwater, creeks, streams, and reservoirs, but also to the marine environment. On the other hand, farmers and ranchers are not like Dow Chemical. Finding a way to protect water quality, without imposing impossible or excessively costly obligations on farmers and ranchers, is what the new regulatory program has to do.

Today, the Water Quality Control Board will be meeting at the Watsonville City Council Chambers at noon, to discuss the proposed new agricultural discharge regulations. The “regulated community” – farmers and ranchers – will definitely be there. If listeners who are simply members of the public can go, that would be good. Regulatory agencies, charged to operate in the public interest, often hear mostly from those who have a specific economic interest in the outcome of their deliberations. To make the institutions of self-government work for us, we need to remember that self-government demands that we be involved ourselves.

For KUSP, this is Gary Patton.

More Information:

Information on the proposed new agricultural discharge program
http://www.swrcb.ca.gov/rwqcb3/AGWaivers/Index.htm

The Regional Water Quality Control Board meeting scheduled for July 8, 2004 will be held at 12:00 noon at the Watsonville City Hall, 250 Main Street, Watsonville. For more information contact the RWQCB at 805-549-3147.

The Fort Ord Reuse Authority, or FORA, is a regional government established under state law, with responsibility over the entirety of the former Fort Ord. Fort Ord is a little piece of real estate in Monterey County that is just about the size of the City and County of San Francisco.

The FORA Board of Directors will be meeting today, and affordable housing is not on the agenda. The “action” in that arena has moved to a possible citizens’ initiative. Instead, the FORA Board is going to cover other important items. They will discuss a Habitat Conservation Plan (or HCP) the adoption of which is required prior to developments that might disturb or destroy endangered habitats. The lack of an adopted HCP is currently holding up the proposed Marina Heights development. In addition, the Highway One Corridor Design Project is also up for discussion. FORA is supposed to be protecting the scenic qualities of the Highway One viewshed. The latest developments in Seaside may or may not qualify; I’ll let you be the judge.

Most important, I think, FORA is going to receive a presentation today on the proposed Master Plan for development of the California State University campus located on the former Fort Ord. How CSUMB develops will profoundly affect the future of the Monterey Peninsula. Click on the Land Use Report link at www.kusp.org for more information.

For KUSP, this is Gary Patton.

More Information:

FORA Website
http://www.fora.org/

Board of Directors’ Agenda
http://www.fora.org/Board_July904.htm

The FORA Board meeting will start at 4:00 p.m. The meeting will be held in the FORA Conference Facility, located at 201 13th Street on the former Fort Ord. You can take the 12th Street freeway off ramp, from Highway One, if you’d like to attend.