Morgan Hill Councilmember Rene Spring has consistently voted against development projects that he says threaten the agricultural integrity of the city. It’s “smart growth,” he said.
He has often been in the minority, most recently opposing a Sept. 5 decision to seek approval of a proposed annexation of land to pave the way for construction of a private Catholic high school.
But the November election—with the city’s first district representatives and no incumbents running for Mayor in Districts D or B—offers Spring the opportunity to gain more “smart growth” allies.
Julie Hutcheson is running in District D against John Mckay and former councilmember Marilyn Librers. Spring is acting as Hutcheson’s campaign manager and said the two have been friends for many years, and she said she is against the revised southeast Morgan Hill annexation.
Spring said growth is a big issue on voters’ minds and believes his campaign for city council in 2016, running on a 1-percent growth platform, put pressure on the council to lower the rate of growth.
Although Spring would still like the current 2 percent annual growth rate to be lower, he credits his campaign for changing popular opinion. “If someone like Julie Hutcheson would’ve been on the council, we would have won that vote,” said Spring.
Hutcheson has a long history of advocating for environmental issues in Morgan Hill. Hutcheson advocated for an update to the city’s growth control measure, which has been in place since 1977. The update resulted in Measure S, which passed in 2016 with an annual cap of 215 housing units—a number the council can reduce each year.
When describing her background, Hutcheson said, “One of the things I first tell everybody is a big part of that work has been around responsible growth,” the opposite of sprawl.
Hutcheson said she would like to focus growth throughout the Monterey Street corridor. She believes this space could offer a good space for diversified housing and may allow for younger residents to stay in Morgan Hill.
“A lot of folks move here because they like the look and feel,” said Hutcheson. “So how you grow is really important to them.”
John Mckay, one of Hutcheson’s opponents in District D, has served as a city planning commissioner. “It’s obvious the community cares about the same basic things,” said McKay. He believes the term urban sprawl is “a catch phrase,” and that the city does not suffer from it.
Where Spring and Hutcheson have fought against annexing land in the Southeast Quadrant, McKay said annexing the land may have given the city more control over the growth that may occur on those properties.
He said the group advocating for the annexation of the full Southeast Quadrant, which was denied by LAFCO in 2015, were also environmentalists, but with a different view of how to do that. “We also want to preserve land,” said McKay. “It’s two different approaches.”
McKay said in a statement to the Times that he does not support the annexation of land unless absolutely necessary and that he would like to focus on increasing density within city limits before looking outside to grow.
Similar to Hutcheson, McKay hopes to continue to build along the Monterey corridor.
Spring has also publicly endorsed Yvonne Martínez-Beltrán in District B. Beltrán is a city planning commissioner. Her campaign website states, “While I realize we can’t preserve Morgan Hill the way it is or was, we can preserve the essence of Morgan Hill… so our children and grandchildren can grow, live, work and play here, too.”
Kenneth Murray, one of Martínez-Beltrán’s opponents in District B, told the Times he would like to focus on commercial growth as opposed to residential growth. “Every time we have another resident, that has a negative impact on our city,” said Murray.
Murray says he has the knowledge to bring jobs to Morgan Hill because of his background in the private sector. If elected, he hopes to see satellite tech offices open in Morgan Hill so residents don’t have to commute to San Jose.
“My focus on growth is about developing a comprehensive revenue plan for the city,” said Murray. “Growth for growth’s sake is not of interest to me.”
Murray thinks Butterfield Boulevard would be a good location for more commercial use.
In the Morgan Hill mayor’s race, former councilmember Greg Sellers is running against current Councilmember Rich Constantine and Kirk Bertolet, who previously ran for mayor in 2016.
Constantine warned that the spike in growth in Morgan Hill in recent years was not due to the council permitting an abundance of projects, but rather remaining allotments being used by developers who were unable to complete projects during the 2008 financial crisis.
Constantine said he is focused on diversifying Morgan Hill’s tax space with commercial and industrial growth along with residential. He said ultimately there is nothing more the city can do to curb growth because Morgan Hill voters already voted to update and retain the growth control measure.
Constantine had been the only councilmember to vote against putting the measure on the 2016 ballot, because he felt that the council’s 215 cap on residential units was not substantiated by data presented to the council. However, he urged the public to pass the measure.
When residents express concerns about growth, Constantine says he congratulates them because as voters they made sure Morgan Hill had a plan in place. He said candidates are not smart growth. “The citizens are smart growth,” he said.
Constantine said his worry now is that future councilmembers will feel pressure to change industrial zoning to residential in an effort to increase city revenue. He encouraged future councilmembers to think long term when making decisions.
“You have to think past your term,” said Constantine, but ultimately he believed at this point Morgan Hill is a well planned city when it comes to growth.
Bertolet publicly criticized Measure S as a candidate in 2016, and said he wanted a 0.5-percent increase in growth each year. Bertolet does not want to focus on residential growth and instead hopes to promote commercial growth if elected. He criticized Constantine and Sellers and said the two had shown too much support for growth throughout their public service.
“If people are happy with the way Morgan Hill is growing for the last four to eight years, then vote for Sellers or Constantine,” said Bertolet. “If they’re not happy and they want someone to limit growth, then vote for me.”
Sellers says smart growth is key, and he led the downtown revitalization task force before serving three terms on the city council.
Focusing on providing a variety of housing options for residents, Sellers said, is a priority for him. He hopes to fill development as much a possible within city limits and work with state agencies on what the government is mandating cities like Morgan Hill provide.
Sellers said growth has been an issue in Morgan Hill for 40 years and that it is important to get people on both sides of the issue sitting down together to come up with a plan. He said that as both a landowner and an environmentalist, he is in a unique position when it comes to approaching growth in Morgan Hill.
“For me, it’s about coming up with a long-term plan that really preserves open space, not just saying no to growth,” said Sellers. “They’re two very different things.”
