Morgan Hill was the second fastest growing city in Santa Clara
County in 2003, trailing only Gilroy, according to estimates the
state Department of Finance released Wednesday.
Morgan Hill was the second fastest growing city in Santa Clara County in 2003, trailing only Gilroy, according to estimates the state Department of Finance released Wednesday. The mushroom capital grew 2.2 percent, from 34,750 to 35,500, between Jan. 1, 2003, and Jan. 1, 2004, adding 750 residents.
Gilroy, the garlic capital, grew by 3.4 percent, from 44,700 to 46,200 during the same period, adding 1,500.
Gilroy didn’t add the most people – San Jose grew by 6,600 compared to Gilroy’s 1,500 – but percentage-wise, nowhere else was close.
With a high-tech economic recession in 2003 and crowded quarters in the county’s northern half, it makes logical sense that home-building would spill out of Silicon Valley into the county’s southern half, where open land is more plentiful.
Morgan Hill Mayor Dennis Kennedy said this was a realistic reaction.
“It’s not something that I’m surprised to see,” Kennedy said. “We all know that the North County is running out of space to grow. The 2.2 percent rate, I think that’s consistent with Morgan Hill’s residential growth-control ordinance.”
Morgan Hill voters reaffirmed the city’s growth-control initiative in the March 2 election by more than 75 percent of the votes and no opposition.
Nancy Richardson, executive director of the Gilroy-based Land Trust for Santa Clara County, said she didn’t think these cities’ growth works against her group’s efforts to preserve wild and agricultural open spaces.
“The question is not how much growth there is but where the growth is taking place,” Richardson said. “This additional population, as long as it will be taking place within the cities’ 20-year growth boundaries, will not significantly impact (the Land Trust’s efforts).”
Her reaction would be different, she said, if more people were moving to lands outside city limits, but she was reassured to hear that the population of unincorporated county areas didn’t change last year.
The fastest-growing city in California was, by far, Elk Grove in Sacramento County, which went from 85,900 residents to 109,100 in 2003 – a 27 percent leap. The Department of Finance attributed this to Elk Grove’s annexation of the community of Laguna West and its addition of 2,948 new housing units.
The fastest-growing county in the state was Riverside, with a 3.4 percent population jump. Santa Clara County’s population rose .7 percent from 1,719,500 to 1,731,400, even though 2003 was still economically tepid.
California’s population increased by 532,000 people in 2003 to 36,144,000, a rise of 1.5 percent.
The biggest city in California is Los Angeles, with 3,912,200 people, followed by San Diego with 1,294,000, San Jose with 926,200, San Francisco with 792,700 and Long Beach with 487,100.
