We can all claim to be this or that but I never thought that I’d ever claim to be a marathoner.
On Nov. 9, 2016, I became a marathoner along with six fellow members of the Morgan Hill Planning Commission and several city staff members.
On Nov. 8, the voters of Morgan Hill had overwhelmingly approved Measure S, which meant that the Planning Commission had to immediately get to work crafting a competition manual representing the values and desires of the Morgan Hill community.
This competition manual would be the document developers and builders of residential developments will use to indicate where they will build, what desirable amenities they will include, and how much they are willing to donate to worthy needs in the community. Points are available for things like creating open space and being environmentally prudent with our resources as well as making our new developments look nice and be comfortable places to live.
Each competitor can commit to their version of what is best for Morgan Hill and. An objective system will be in place to determine which ones are the best by a points score. More desirable commitments equals more points you get, and that score could win you allocations (permission to build a single dwelling unit).
This isn’t the first time this community would benefit from the residential development control system (RDCS) competition. We have benefitted from decades of this kind of development regulation. Each previous iteration of the RDCS competition manual was refined to reflect the values of the community at that time, and this one is no different.
The new competition manual takes the voter-approved Measure S and embodies what the voters indicated they wanted. Things like a lower number of dwelling units allowed to be built and eliminating spikes in construction, like we’ve been seeing the past few years.
The commission met 20 times to create the competition manual basically from scratch. The goal would be to create a new manual, not just a refinement of the last one, and streamline it to make it simpler.
Over those 20 meetings we discussed and debated how the needs and wants of the community would be met. We debated and then debated again, sometimes to the point of frustration, yet we always kept our goal in mind and cooperated to the end.
We got into the weeds. Repeatedly. But in those weeds were the details which now make up the new RDCS Competition Manual.
So we didn’t get simpler, but I think we got a pretty good document that should achieve its goal of getting great projects for Morgan Hill.
The City Council will soon decide whether or not the new competition manual is ready for prime time but it’ll be in this fall’s competition that we’ll see if the first goal of the manual works in deciding who gets allocations.
But the final test will be in the following years when we see if we get the kind of projects that this community wants. My money is on getting that great community.
John McKay is president of the Morgan Hill Downtown Association, city planning commissioner and co-founder of the Morgan Hill Tourism Alliance. He can be reached at
ta*****@ya***.com
.
