Cooperative Action Needed On State Housing Allocation

August 2, 2000

The Honorable Bruce McPherson
California State Senate
7, John Street
Salinas, CA 93901

The Honorable Fred Keeley
California State Assembly
CSU--Monterey Bay
100 Campus Center, Building 58
Seaside, CA 93955

The Honorable Peter Frusetta
California State Assembly
46 South Main Street
Salinas, CA 93901

RE: HCD Preliminary Growth Allocations for Monterey County

Dear Senator McPherson and Assembly Members Keeley and Frusetta:

As you undoubtedly know, the State Department of Housing and Community Development has recently released preliminary housing allocation figures for Monterey County. HCD is calling for the construction of 28,000 new homes in Monterey County over the next seven years.

Officials from both the City of Salinas and the County of Monterey--and AMBAG Executive Director Nick Papadakis--have clearly stated that these figures are unrealistic. They believe that lower figures would be much more appropriate, particularly in view of the resource and other constraints that currently prevail throughout most of the county.

LandWatch is committed to a "smart growth" approach to the future development of Monterey County. We join with those local officials who have expressed skepticism about the recently released HCD figures, and we believe that the various local governments need to take some positive actions to "head off" a mandate that would be unrealistic, and that could lead to unfair and inappropriate consequences for Monterey County's local governments.

This letter is to ask you to work jointly among yourselves, and with AMBAG, local jurisdictions, and the HCD, to lower the recently released preliminary figures for Monterey County, so as to take account of resource and public service constraints. We believe that the HCD will take seriously any responsible effort, in which you are involved, that tries more realistically to allocate future housing growth to Monterey County.

Thank you for considering this request. Naturally, LandWatch stands ready to be of whatever assistance we can.

8/3/00