It’s hard to believe that too many folks are listening to this Land Use Report on Christmas morning, and I hope that those whom I regularly exhort to get involved in land use issues will be celebrating today, with great joy, and with family and friends, all the blessings of this life.

Among those blessings is certainly our ability to create new and different realities, and essentially to make our dreams come true. We do this individually, as we envision a personal objective, and then “make it so,” as Captain Aubrey of the “Master and Commander” series, or Jean Luc Picard, of the Starship Enterprise, so often say. We do it together, as we work in our communities to shape them in ways that capture our vision for a better future. Letting things “happen to us,” instead of “making them happen,” is to shortchange our potential.

For the theologically minded, Jesus comes into the world with the promise of both power and redemption. The problems and difficulties and defeats that are endemic to our existence can be transformed. From water….into wine. The promise of Christmas is a profound statement about the ability of love, joy, and goodness to conquer evil, despair, and death.

I hope, today, that a profound joy will penetrate and sustain your life, and will help motivate you, in the New Year, to work in your community to build a new reality that responds to our deepest dreams.

Merry Christmas!

For KUSP, this is Gary Patton.

Speaking of creating new realities (as I was yesterday on the Land Use Report), there is an opportunity to engage in some serious future planning coming up on Thursday, January 11th. That’s the day that the Planning, Building, and Code Enforcement Department of the City of San Jose will hold its next public meeting on a proposed Coyote Valley Specific Plan. You can get more information on the KUSP website, and you can also read the transcript of yesterday’s Land Use Report, if you didn’t happen to be tuned in on Christmas morning, as I strongly suspect most of you weren’t.

Coyote Valley is located within the city limits of the City of San Jose, at the very south end of the City. While legally it’s within the city, it is, essentially, an agricultural and natural area. The City is proposing to transform this agricultural and natural area into a densely developed urban area. You’re invited to participate.

It really is one of the great things about our human condition that we can, both individually and collectively, dream up, and then create, new realities. Let me suggest, however, that just because we can do something doesn’t, necessarily, mean that we ought to do it. The future of Coyote Valley was a major discussion point during last November’s election campaign in San Jose. Maybe, there is still an opportunity to convince the City either to delay or “abstain” from the development proposed. If you care, now’s the time to get involved.

For KUSP, this is Gary Patton.

More Information

The City of San Jose has lots of information on the proposed Coyote Valley Specific Plan on its website. You can access that information at
http://www.sanjoseca.gov/coyotevalley/.

The January 11, 2007 meeting will be held at the Camden Community Center, 3369 Union Avenue (at the intersection of Camden Avenue and Union Avenue) in San Jose. For more information contact Susan Walsh at susan.walsh@sanjoseca.gov.

The Association of Monterey Bay Area Governments is inviting your participation in their 13th Annual Tri-County Economic Conference. I’m giving you lots of advance notice, so you can plan ahead. The event will be held on Friday, January 19th, 2007 at the Embassy Suites Hotel in Seaside. Its theme is “Leveraging the Green Economy.” Specific panel discussions will focus on organic agriculture, renewable energy, and economic diversification within the Monterey Bay Region. You can get lots more information by clicking on the links below.

Economics has been called “the dismal science,” but this particular set of presentations is clearly trying to present the opposite view. Don’t we have an opportunity, AMBAG is saying, to recreate our economic arrangements so that we can build a healthy and sustainable economy, where there are good jobs and work opportunities for many more of us, without basing that economic activity on the destruction of the natural environment?

California really began its history with a rush to tear golden riches from the ground, and with the environmental consequences of that almost completely ignored. I think it is worth trying the opposite approach, as we proceed into a new, 21st Century. We still have lots more to lose, if we get our economics wrong, and we have a lot to gain, if we get them right.

For KUSP, this is Gary Patton.

More Information

AMBAG Website
http://www.ambag.org/

Information on the 13th Annual Economic Conference
http://www.ambag.org/events/13th_Tri-CountyConf.html

The Monterey County Board of Supervisors did not, as predicted, take action at their last meeting of calendar year 2006 to adopt Version #4 of the long awaited Monterey County General Plan Update. Had the Board done so, many would have called such action a kind of holiday gift to the development community, since the policies in GPU4, as it is popularly called, would allow significant development throughout large portions of the rural part of Monterey County.

The so-called “Community General Plan,” which has a different thrust to it, would accommodate the future growth that Monterey County is expected to experience, but would preserve agricultural and natural lands, by focusing that new growth within existing urban areas. Professional planners sometimes call the “Community General Plan” approach “smart growth,” because focusing new growth in existing urban areas is cheaper, and preserves the most agricultural and natural land.

The policies in the GPU4 document, as most recently considered by the Board of Supervisors, perpetuate a land use system that allows land owners to maximize their individual profit-making opportunities, but with the consequence that sprawl can continue, and public costs rise more than would otherwise be the case.

Tomorrow, I will try to give listeners an overview of what may happen in early 2007, in terms of land use decision making in Monterey County.

For KUSP, this is Gary Patton.

More Information

Monterey County Website
http://www.co.monterey.ca.us/

County Website on the General Plan Update
http://www.co.monterey.ca.us/pbi/gpu/

Responses to comments on the Draft GPU Environmental Impact Report
http://www.co.monterey.ca.us/pbi/gpu/
21370014_FEIR_response_to_comments.pdf

LandWatch Monterey County Website
http://www.landwatch.org

The process to develop a General Plan Update for Monterey County began in 1999. Extensive public outreach engaged thousands of residents in the initial planning. Out of that public participation process came twelve “guiding objectives,” which defined a “smart growth” approach.

The first three drafts of the General Plan Update were based on these twelve “guiding objectives.” The third draft, called “GPU3,” was unanimously endorsed by the County Planning Commission, but was totally rejected by the Board of Supervisors, which refused even to consider it. After six years, and six million dollars, the Board voted 3-2 to “start over.” GPU4, the latest document, is not based on the twelve “guiding objectives,” and is not a “smart growth” plan.

The Board’s “start over” decision led a group of eighteen community groups to hold workshops throughout the County, including workshops in Spanish, and to develop a “Community General Plan,” which is based on the twelve publicly-supported “guiding objectives.” The Board rejected that plan, as might be expected, but the community groups then qualified an initiative version for public vote. The Board has been fighting, up till now, to prevent the voters from voting on this Community General Plan.

Most recently, the Board has discussed a completely new idea, which is to the let the public vote on both the “GPU4” plan, and the “Community General Plan,” so that the public will make the ultimate policy choice.

For KUSP, this is Gary Patton.

More Information

Monterey County Website
http://www.co.monterey.ca.us/

County Website on the General Plan Update
http://www.co.monterey.ca.us/pbi/gpu/

Responses to comments on the Draft GPU Environmental Impact Report
http://www.co.monterey.ca.us/pbi/gpu/
21370014_FEIR_response_to_comments.pdf

LandWatch Monterey County Website
http://www.landwatch.org