City Council considering new measure to encourage development
downtown
Morgan Hill – Less than two years after voters approved Measure C, city leaders are hoping to get a do-over from the public that allows more flexibility to promote downtown development.
Next year, Morgan Hill voters will likely be asked to approve a development measure that would exempt downtown projects from Measure C, which was passed in March 2004 and caps new residential units at 250 a year.
If the as yet unwritten and unnamed measure passes at the ballot booths, downtown development projects would be subject to the city’s “smart growth” policies, but will not count against the overall housing allocations the city parcels out under Measure C.
The city will include a sunset clause in the measure, but isn’t sure when the new policy would expire yet.
Councilman Greg Sellers said portions of Measure C are in conflict and that the intense competition for residential building permits makes it impossible to develop downtown at a pace fast enough to stimulate economic growth in the city’s core.
“It’s more and more apparent to me that you cannot do a multi-year phasing approach to downtown,” Sellers said. “We’re trying to build a critical mass and to spread that over five years, it’s really hard to gain momentum.”
Measure C was intended to control growth in the city by limiting growth to meet a target population of 48,000 by 2020. It was an update of two earlier measures, P, which was passed in the 1990s and, E, which was passed in 1978. Gary Walton, a developer who’s also the president of the Morgan Hill Downtown Association, said he believes the city has updated the measures, but not its thinking.
“We’re stuck in a time when the predominate issues were cul-de-sacs and subdivisions,” Walton said. “I don’t think we’ve kept up with the direction the world is headed.”
Walton wants the city to commit itself to smart-growth policies and true urban core redevelopment. It’s a position shared by members of the local environmental community, who see a measure promoting downtown growth as the solution to Morgan Hill’s long history of promoting urban sprawl.
“The city is trying to retain its rural charm and has really taken a slow growth approach to that,” said Michele Beasley of the Greenbelt Alliance. “However, Measure C has led to a lot of single family homes on the outskirts and not facilitated high-density downtown, which is a better use of existing infrastructure and a better way to accommodate more residents.”
With strict limits on growth, two mixed-use, retail and residential projects generally seen as beneficial to the city’s downtown have been put on hold, including a 15-unit project on the corner of Monterey Road and Main Avenue, and 57-unit project on E. Third Street. Those projects have been held up in part because Measure C prohibits the city from allocating enough residential units to build the projects all at once.
“We have specific goals for downtown that aren’t meshing real well with how growth control policy works,” Councilman Larry Carr said. “We can’t go very far into the future with allotments to be able to do the kind of development we think is important downtown.”
Dan Craig, executive director of the downtown association, was hoping to get a measure on the ballot as recently as the November special election.
He said exempting downtown from Measure C helps all developers because homebuilders on the edges of town will have less competition for the annual allotments. Craig said a smart-growth policy downtown is a rare opportunity to serve both economic and environmental interests, and will enable Morgan Hill to meld a bustling urban environment with its rural character and foster a unique identity.
“Downtown represents the heart of the community. It’s the front porch of the community. It’s where the community comes together,” Craig said. “It needs to be lively and vital if the city is going to have a reputation for being alive and vital.”
