A Santa Clara County commission tasked with approving or denying the City of Morgan Hill’s Southeast Quadrant annexation issued a blistering critique of the project as the public comment period for the draft environmental report on the controversial proposal came to a close last week.
The comments and questions submitted by the Santa Clara County Local Agency Formation Commission – as well as those from the Planning Commission and other parties in response to the draft Environmental Impact Report – will be reviewed by City staff and consultants over the coming months.
For now, City officials are not commenting in depth on the 23-page, Feb. 18 letter from LAFCO staff and the agency’s attorneys claiming the roughly 750-acre annexation proposal is in violation of state environmental law, the City’s own General Plan, the County’s land use guidelines and LAFCO’s policies.
One criticism contained in the letter from LAFCO Executive Officer Neelima Palacherla is that not including the SEQ study in the current comprehensive General Plan update is a violation of the California Environmental Quality Act.
But Morgan Hill Mayor Steve Tate said the dilemma is more nuanced than Palacherla’s letter suggests.
“This is a completion of the prior General Plan update” in 2001, Tate said. “We’re trying to get it done before we finalize the (current) General Plan update.”
When embarking on the current update last year, the City decided not to include the SEQ because the SEQ study is “a continuation of our last General Plan update,” according to Morgan Hill Community Development Director Andrew Crabtree.
The voluminous draft EIR document lists the potential impacts of the City’s plan to extend the City limits and service boundaries into the roughly 1,200-acre area on the east side of U.S. 101, which is generally bound by the freeway, Condit Road, San Pedro Avenue, Carey Avenue and Maple Avenue.
Hatched at the turn of the century by the City Council and property owners in the SEQ, the massive proposal would annex about 759 acres into the City limits and implement a new zoning designation known as “sports-recreation-leisure.” The goal of the project is to control growth in the rural area better than the County can, while maintaining permanent open space areas to form a “greenbelt” around south Morgan Hill, according to proponents.
The draft EIR also includes a review of a proposal known as an “agricultural preservation” policy that would complement the SEQ plans by requiring any developer who proposes to convert agricultural property to a non-farming use to pay a fee to preserve an equal acreage of undisturbed land elsewhere in the City.
Proponents of the SEQ – which has a strong history of mostly farming activity – say the project will preserve the agricultural uses that are still economically viable there. Opponents of the City’s plan say it will have the opposite effect, and the City should work on developing or preserving the vacant land already inside City limits before expanding.
Longtime Morgan Hill developer Gordon Jacoby, an owner of a 23-acre parcel in the SEQ the Council intends to purchase for sports fields, said LAFCO staff’s and attorneys’ complaints stem from the commission’s much narrower focus than the City’s responsibilities.
Specifically, the City’s broad focus to “make the community healthy” includes ensuring not only agriculture is preserved but also offering sports and recreational options, Jacoby said. Plus, LAFCO and the County rely on land use regulations to preserve agriculture, while the City has a history of working face-to-face with property owners – including older farmers in the SEQ who are ready to give up agriculture – and offering incentives to preserve at least some of their property as farmland.
“To some degree, our efforts of the SEQ, and the City’s and LAFCO’s goals are in some respect pretty closely aligned. That alignment has to do with trying to find some efforts to maintain some agriculture in the City … for greenbelt purposes (and) health food purposes,” Jacoby said.
Specific projects in the SEQ – which were considered in the draft EIR – are the South County Catholic High School and a planned residential development on the Chiala family’s property that would include residential estates and open space. Other sports-related retail uses are also proposed in the SEQ.
One of Palacherla’s gripes is there is not enough detail on these proposals to conduct a thorough environmental study as the City’s draft EIR, which was published in December, purports to do.
Former Councilman Mark Grzan said the City’s proposal will not accomplish its stated objectives, and if the LAFCO board approves the project without addressing Palacherla’s complaints, it will likely face legal ramifications. Sports uses are “the lie” the City is using to convince LAFCO to approve the boundary extensions; the property owners and residential developers will reap the only benefit produced by the SEQ project; and the EIR should have been a part of the current General Plan update, Grzan continued.
On Wednesday, the Committee for Green Foothills responded to the draft EIR by calling the City’s SEQ plans “indefensible” and the LAFCO attorneys’ legal opinion “devastating” to the City’s plans.
“The EIR lacks credible disclosure and analysis of the significant environmental impacts to farmland, viewsheds, special status species, greenhouse gas emissions, growth inducement and a riparian corridor, just to name of few,” stated part of a web post by CFG Environmental Advocate Julie Hutcheson, a Morgan Hill resident. The CFG submitted a 20-page comment to the City in response to the draft EIR.
Morgan Hill planners react
Even Morgan Hill Planning Commissioners had some pointed questions and comments at a study session on the draft EIR Tuesday night.
“I don’t have a clue how we’re going to pay for” the agricultural mitigation, Commissioner Joe Mueller said at that meeting, adding later, “Nowhere did I find out how many residents we’re adding to the City’s population.”
The letter from LAFCO staff noted the City’s proposed mitigation fee of $15,000 per acre is unlikely to pencil out. The City policy proposes seeking other available outside funds to supplement the fee.
LAFCO staff do not get the final say-so on the annexation plan; rather, the commission’s board of directors does. That board consists of seven elected officials from various cities and agencies from throughout the County, including District 1 Supervisor Mike Wasserman.
Tate said he and Council members will be sure to bend the ear of LAFCO commissioners as the time approaches.
City staff attended the Planning Commission meeting, the point of which was not to provide immediate answers, but to record the questions and criticisms so staff and consultants can respond to them in a later draft of the EIR, Crabtree said.
Attend an SEQ public hearing
A series of public hearings on the draft EIR is proposed in May, and the Council is expected to consider approving the study – with responses to LAFCO and other comments – amended at a June 18 meeting, City staff said. Check the city’s website at morganhill.ca.gov for updates and information.
