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KUSP LandWatch
News
Week of December 3, 2007 to December 7, 2007
Week of December 3, 2007 to December 7, 2007
KUSP provided a brief Land Use Report on KUSP Radio from January 2003 to May 2016. Archives of past transcripts are available here.
Week of December 3, 2007 to December 7, 2007
- Monday, December 3, 2007
Santa Cruz County Planning Items
- Tuesday, December 4, 2007
LAFCOs Talk About Fire Protection
- Wednesday, December 5, 2007
A CRLA Community Water Training
- Thursday, December 6, 2007
A Communication From Lee Quarnstrom
- Friday, December 7, 2007
Greenfields To Asphalt
The following Land Use Reports have been presented on KUSP Radio by Gary A. Patton. The Wittwer & Parkin law firm is located in Santa Cruz, California, and practices environmental and governmental law. As part of its practice, the law firm files litigation and takes other action on behalf of its clients, which are typically private individuals, governmental agencies, environmental organizations, or community groups. Whenever the Land Use Report comments on an issue with which the Wittwer & Parkin law firm is involved on behalf of a client, Mr. Patton will make this relationship clear, as part of his commentary. Mr. Patton’s comments do not represent the views of Wittwer & Parkin, LLP, KUSP Radio, nor of any of its sponsors.
| Monday, December 3, 2007 Santa Cruz County Planning Items |
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The Santa Cruz County Board of Supervisors meets tomorrow, and there are a number of important planning-related items on the agenda. First, County staff has provided a report on various issues related to the regulation of wireless communications facilities. These facilities can have adverse visual impacts, and perhaps even significant public health impacts. The staff is not recommending any new regulatory action. If this is an issue you care about, you should check out the staff report. A link is available on the KUSP website. Second, the Board is considering a recommendation to conform zoning and General Plan designations on a parcel of land on Highway 9, in Felton. State law requires zoning regulations to be “consistent” with the General Plan, and that means that if you have a residential house located in a “commercial” General Plan area, and the house burns down, you may not be able to rebuild it. That’s the problem that the Board is addressing tomorrow. Finally, and most important, the Board is going to consider a very significant change in its ordinances relating to the development of “accessory structures,” to make it easier to place these units on existing parcels. I talked about this issue last week. Impacts in both urban neighborhoods, like Live Oak, and in rural areas, like Bonny Doon and the San Lorenzo Valley, might be expected. The hearing tomorrow will take place at about 9:30 in the morning. For KUSP, this is Gary Patton.
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| Tuesday, December 4, 2007 LAFCOs Talk About Fire Protection |
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Every County in the state (except the City and County of San Francisco) has a Local Agency Formation Commission, or LAFCO. If you’d like to find out more about LAFCOs, track down the transcript of today’s Land Use Report. The Monterey County LAFCO met yesterday afternoon, and considered a number of pretty routine and administrative items, and won’t meet again until next year. If you’d like to see a LAFCO in action relatively soon, then consider going down to the Santa Cruz County Governmental Center tomorrow, at 9:30 in the morning, or think about taking in the Santa Clara County LAFCO meeting, also scheduled for tomorrow, but at 1:15 in the afternoon. The San Luis Obispo County LAFCO will be meeting on Thursday at 9:00 a.m. In Santa Cruz County, LAFCO will be considering the creation of a new Bonny Doon Fire Protection District, and will also review a South County Fire Study. Fire services are also on the LAFCO agenda in Santa Clara County and in San Luis Obispo County. The recent and catastrophic wildfires in Southern California raise significant land used policy questions, but they also make clear how important it is that our local communities have a well-organized system of fire protection. That little known, and even less well understood state agency, LAFCO, is right at the heart of how we decide the best way to provide for fire protection in our rural areas. For KUSP, this is Gary Patton.
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| Wednesday, December 5, 2007 A CRLA Community Water Training |
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California Rural Legal Assistance, the CRLA, was founded in 1966 as a nonprofit legal services program working on behalf of the rural poor. Today, CRLA has 22 offices, eight of them right here on the Central Coast, in Santa Cruz, Gilroy, Watsonville, Monterey, two in Salinas, Paso Robles, and San Luis Obispo. The impact of CRLA's litigation has touched the lives of literally millions of poor individuals, improving conditions for farmworkers, new immigrants, welfare mothers, school children, the elderly, the physically challenged, and entire communities. The community education and outreach work of CRLA is also critically important. Tomorrow, on Thursday, December 6th, the CRLA will provide a community training on “Water Issues Facing the Central Coast.” The training will be held at 817 Beach Street, in Salinas, and will run from 9:00 a.m. to noon. If your community faces serious water quality or water supply concerns, or if you want to find out who the key decision makers are, and how to play a more powerful role in the processes that will determine whether your family is supplied with safe water, this is a meeting you should attend. Se habla español! Más información en www.kusp.org. For KUSP, this is Gary Patton.
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| Thursday, December 6, 2007 A Communication From Lee Quarnstrom |
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Lee Quarnstrom now lives in what might be called the “heart” of Orange County. Formerly, Lee was a long-time reporter for the San Jose Mercury News and the Watsonville Register-Pajaronian. I think that Lee may be missing the kind of engaged activism that he used to report on, here on the Central Coast. He sent me a news clip that reads, “Coyote Hills Eliminated as Open Space in Fullerton’s General Plan Discussions.” Opposition to protecting some of the very rare open space still remaining in Orange County was apparently spearheaded by the CEO of the Building Industry Association, and the Vice President of the Chamber of Commerce. The land in question, now slated for development is owned by Chevron. According to Lee, “the folks who oppose the huge development on this last remaining large parcel of open space need help; they need advice; they need to learn how to tap into the student body at the California State University campus in Fullerton; they need a kick in the butt.” As regular listeners know, the theme song of this Land Use Report is that the future of our communities can be changed, if folks will just get involved themselves. I’ll send Lee a transcript of today’s broadcast, with a few tips that might help, and remind him that you can listen to KUSP and the Land Use Report anywhere in the world, even in Orange County, looking below. For KUSP, this is Gary Patton.
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| Friday, December 7, 2007 Greenfields To Asphalt |
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On Tuesday, I talked about the little known but very important governmental agency called LAFCO, the Local Agency Formation Commission. It would be hard to overstate how important LAFCOs are, in the scheme of land use regulation. LAFCOs oversee the “formation” of local governmental agencies, and this authority extends to an authority to decide what lands are annexed to cities. Since annexation to a city means, ultimately, urban development, LAFCOs are the governmental agency that will, in most cases, determine whether farmland stays as farmland, or whether it is converted to subdivisions and shopping centers. Nowhere is the impact of these decisions greater than in Monterey County. The Salinas Valley contains the most economically productive farmland in the world, and the Monterey County LAFCO will determine whether it gets developed or protected. Unfortunately, the most recent LAFCO decisions in Monterey County show that the LAFCO there is dedicated to the conversion of the Salinas Valley to development. The most poignant case is in Greenfield, a small city located in Southern Monterey County. Supervisor Lou Calcagno, himself a farmer, but sitting as a member of LAFCO, cast the deciding vote to allow Greenfield to convert 5,000 acres of prime farmland to urban uses. You can find out more about LAFCO, and get the latest update on Greenfield, by looking below. For KUSP, this is Gary Patton.
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Archives of past transcripts are available here
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