[Sosfbay-discuss] New Santa Clara Rural Development Fight

[alexcathy at aol.com]

Dear Green Friends,

  F.Y.I. A new fight is brewing in Santa Clara County over rural 
development. See pasted below the lead front page article in 
yesterday's San Jose Mercury News.

  This is a perennial issue where I live in Milpitas. Overwhelming 
majorities of our local voters have expressed the desire to maintain 
our beautiful green hills for twenty years.

 No matter.

  A big problem with our money-driven politics is that dumb ideas never 
go away so long as there are rich people who support them. And since 
there are plenty of "Silicon Valley" millionaires with fantasies of 
play-acting as Rhett Butler and Scarlett O'Hara in "Gone With The Wind" 
out of a big ugly mansion on the hills looking down on "micro-slaves" 
in the valley, this issue never completely goes away.

  Please note that (who else?) Wes Rolley's dear "friend," the corrupt 
Congressman Richard Pombo, is mentioned.

  Also note how the issue has already been "framed" in the language of 
the familiar rightwing Republican phony "populism." The bullshit pits 
us "elite" city folks with "401(k) plans for retirement" against po' 
little ranchers and farmers with "their life savings tied up in land."

  Can't you just hear the sound track with the country fiddle and the 
banjo?


 Alex Walker


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 Published in the San Jose Mercury News, Monday, February 13, 2006.
 DRIVE TO CURB RURAL GROWTH
 SANTA CLARA COUNTY RANCHERS VOW FIGHT
 By Paul Rogers

  Setting the stage for a major land-use battle, a coalition of 
environmentalists plans to begin collecting signatures today for a 
ballot measure to set strict new development rules for hillsides, 
ranches and large farms across Santa Clara County.
  The Sierra Club, Greenbelt Alliance, Santa Clara Valley Audubon 
Society and other members of the coalition -- which already has 
$300,000 in the bank -- must collect 36,040 signatures from registered 
county voters to qualify for the November ballot, something they and 
their opponents expect will happen.

  The measure, which farmers and ranchers fear would drive down the 
value of their land, would affect nearly half of Santa Clara County's 
839,000 acres.

  The complex proposal would essentially do two things. First, it would 
reduce the number of homes that could be built in unincorporated, rural 
areas along the east foothills of the Diablo Range from Milpitas to 
Gilroy, the Santa Cruz Mountains from Gilroy to Los Altos and east of 
Mount Hamilton. On lands zoned for ranching, for example, it would 
allow only one home per 160 acres, down from up to eight homes per 160 
acres now.

  It also would set limits for new development in those areas: curbing 
the amount of square footage that could be built per parcel, reducing 
building on ridgelines and banning building unless adequate water is 
available.
 Only outside cities

  The measure would not affect land within city limits. Nor, supporters 
say, would it affect proposed development in Coyote Valley, which would 
be annexed into the city of San Jose before the development was built.

  Supporters say the changes are needed to reduce the risk of sprawl, 
particularly as Silicon Valley's population grows in the decades ahead.

  "Part of what makes California such a special place is the rural 
areas, the oak woodlands, the ridgelines,'' said Melissa Hippard, 
executive director of the Loma Prieta Chapter of the Sierra Club. 
``We're trying to keep urban areas in urban areas.''
  But farmers and ranchers are up in arms. They say the county's general 
plan already does a good job of protecting rural landscapes by limiting 
development. They say the proposal, if approved by a majority of 
voters, would reduce their property values.

  "This is going to be one of the most controversial land-use issues to 
be raised here in a long time,'' said Jenny Derry, executive director 
of the Santa Clara County Farm Bureau.

  Derry noted that while city residents have 401(k) plans for 
retirement, rural residents have their life savings tied up in land.
  "I am personally dead set against it,'' said Don Silacci, a Gilroy 
cattle rancher and past president of the Santa Clara County Cattlemen's 
Association. ``We've got all kinds of restrictions now. We just don't 
need a bunch of environmentalists putting a lot of new regulations on 
us.''

 Help from ex-professor

  The measure was drafted with help from Robert Girard, a Stanford 
University Law professor from 1958 to 1994.
  Over the past 20 years, Girard has been a low-profile author of a 
number of ballot measures to limit growth across Northern California.

  He was one of the primary authors of Measure T, for example, which San 
Mateo County voters passed in 1996 by 74 percent, endorsing a tunnel at 
Devils Slide on Highway 1 instead of a new highway through a state 
park, as Caltrans wanted. The $270 million tunnel is now under 
construction.

  A slow-growth measure drafted in part by Girard was rejected by voters 
in San Benito County in 2004. But he also was key in helping write 
Alameda County's Measure D, approved by voters in 2000, which placed 
new restrictions on rural development stricter than those now proposed 
for Santa Clara County. The Sierra Club and real estate developers 
spent a total of $3 million during that campaign.

  "There is a real public interest in preserving the rural nature, the 
natural qualities of the county,'' Girard said. ``To strike some kind 
of reasonable balance between the rural areas and the urban areas is 
very important to the public. If you are going to do that, you do have 
to impose some limitations on development.''

  Although there have been no huge new subdivisions approved in recent 
years on unincorporated ranch land and farmlands in Santa Clara County, 
Hippard and other environmentalists said they are concerned about 
potential development proposals. They cite properties such as the 
6,500-acre Sargent Ranch near Gilroy, along with development that could 
result if Rep. Richard Pombo, R-Stockton, ever is successful with his 
plan to build a freeway over Mount Hamilton from the Central Valley to 
San Jose.
  Since the 1970s, Santa Clara has been the most populous county in the 
Bay Area. Santa Clara County grew by 695,000 people from 1970 to 2005. 
The current population of 1.7 million is projected to grow to 2.25 
million by 2040, according to state estimates. That increase is the 
equivalent of adding the current populations of Oakland and Tracy.

 Some endorsements

  The measure already has won endorsements from Assembly members John 
Laird and Sally Lieber, Santa Clara County Supervisor Liz Kniss and 
former supervisors Dianne McKenna, Rod Diridon and Rebecca Morgan.

  It also is endorsed by former San Jose mayors Susan Hammer and Janet 
Gray Hayes, along with Dennis Kennedy, the mayor of Morgan Hill, and 
Judy Kleinberg, the mayor of Palo Alto.
 But opponents say they will be mobilizing, too.

  "Owners have been taking care of their land all these years knowing 
that at some point they'd be able to sell a piece or two and be able to 
retire on their land,'' said Derry of the farm bureau. ``We see it as a 
property rights issue.''

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 For more information, go to www.openspace2006.org.

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