Urban limit line proposals on open space going to council for
review on April 20
A last-moment alternative to the urban limit line proposal that Morgan Hill officials have been crafting for two years is the latest frustration for Mayor Dennis Kennedy, who has been trying to direct Morgan Hill development for decades.
“You can’t please everybody and in this case you can’t please hardly anybody,” Kennedy said last week. “This is probably one of the most difficult things to do because on the one hand you have environmental advocates pushing hard to protect open space and agriculture land, and on the other you have people pushing property rights and the ability to maximize profit from their property.”
Kennedy has wrestled with development issues in Morgan Hill since he helped pass the city’s original growth control ordinance in 1978. The way the city has grown has been anything but “smart.” Rather than growing in dense, concentric circles from downtown, the city has unfolded in spirals and tentacles.
The growth pattern has encroached on viable farmland, made tying a permanent greenbelt around the city impossible and created a lot of in-fill space that’s more easily developed.
“Everybody’s for density, but Morgan Hill did not develop that way,” said George Thomas Jr., a Morgan Hill attorney who helped write the latest urban limit line policy. “Because of politics in the ’60s and ’70s the city grew like an octopus.”
But since then, voters have time and again affirmed that they want to limit growth and be surrounded by a greenbelt separating the city from San Jose and San Martin. In March 2004, voters approved Measure C, which continued a 250 per year cap on new homes.
The city already has a growth boundary, established in 1996, that includes still undeveloped land. But Kennedy wants a permanent boundary, so in March 2003 he convened a committee to draw up a new limit that will forever lay out exact limits on development.
The proposed line will be presented to the city council April 20. It follows the city’s urban growth boundary except north of Madrone Business Park (north of Cochrane Road), the Diana/Main/Hill road area and, most contentious of all, the southeast quadrant.
The quadrant is an area of 1,250 acres bounded by San Pedro Avenue on the north, U.S. 101 on the west, Carey Road on the east and Maple Avenue on the south. The quadrant contains property used for agriculture, large homesteads and undeveloped land plus some highly visible and attractive land. Under consideration is a 200-acre business park area near the freeway, commercial areas, new and existing residential development.
As drafted, the plan is disappointing to property owners there. Art Puliafico, who owns farm land in the quadrant, believes the development restrictions the city would impose are too strict. With Morgan Hill essentially fenced in with hillside, he thinks the valley floor should be open for development and not subject to mitigation policies.
“Property owners don’t understand how a few token acres of open space on the valley floor will benefit the community at large,” Puliafico said. “There’s not much flat valley land in Morgan Hill and what’s left is next to the freeway.”
But to most environmental advocates who helped write the plan, the southeast quadrant is critical to preserving an open space boundary between Morgan Hill and San Martin.
“The urban limit line that has come out of the advisory committee allows close to 2,000 acres of farmland to be included,” said Michele Beasley, a Morgan Hill resident and member of the Greenbelt Alliance. “We feel that’s just too much vacant land, allowing for sprawl development.”
Beasley helped craft the alternative plan that would not allow a mix of urban and industrial development in the southeast quadrant. Alex Kennett, South County’s elected representative on the county Open Space Authority said the alternative plan is better for land owners. Under the current proposal, property owners will have to wait for zoning changes before selling or developing their land. Under his plan, they can, in theory, sell almost immediately, at market rates, to land conservation agencies.
“The draft isn’t making anybody happy. With the existing plan, land owners have to wait 10 or more years to see results,” he said. “With my plan they can start the process of trying to sell the land by 2007. This isn’t meant to replace [the draft plan] but address issues and make it more user friendly.”
Kennett will offer the city council his counter proposal on April 20. Kennedy said that whatever its merits, the proposal is not practical and will boost housing costs by raising impact fees.
“The biggest problem is that it was not presented earlier in the process,” Kennedy said.
“Some of their ideas may have merits, but there are a lot of problems with what they’re proposing. Taking land and putting it outside the urban limit line doesn’t make sense because the land is already urbanized.”
And while some environmentalists want to draw a tighter line, Thomas, who is also a Greenbelt Alliance member, wants the urban limit line to include the greenbelt.
Thomas and his family own property that may benefit economically from expanding the line, but he said he’s not interested in developing his property. What he wants, he said, is to prevent the county from developing the land at is own discretion, like it is able to do in San Martin.
“I want it to be part of the city, not for development, but for control,” Thomas said. “At least the valley floor should be controlled by Morgan Hill or we’re going to have the same problems as San Martin.”
Beasley said that drawing the line outside the greenbelt will ensure that South County begins to look like the Peninsula, with uninterrupted development.
“It would erase any community separation between Morgan Hill and San Martin,” she said. “As soon as you draw an urban limit line you basically open that land to development. Once it’s drawn, it’s pretty much fair game for residential and industrial development.”
For Morgan Hill to implement any urban limit line policy, the council will have to make several changes to the general plan, including modifying the role of agriculture in the southeast quadrant and adding development policies for specific neighborhoods.
A final determination for the greenbelt to the south and east has not been made. To the north, Morgan Hill will rely on the greenbelt planned in the Coyote Valley Specific Plan. To the west, the committee identified El Toro and the area bordered by Edmundson, DeWitt and Sunset avenues to be its highest priorities.
Kennedy said, that despite the conflicts, the plan is a testament to the spirit of compromise.
“I think we’ve done a pretty darn good job,” he said. “Not everybody is happy, but after many hours of debate and discussion and research, we came up with something that has the potential to work.”
Puliafico agreed.
“When everybody’s unhappy, maybe that’s when it’s best,” he said. “I think this plan is the best we can do. People didn’t get what they want but nobody thinks it’s out there on the moon.”
Gilroy Dispatch reporter Matt King can be reached at [email protected] or 847-7240.
