The Morgan Hill City Council took a key step in the General Plan update process Wednesday by selecting three growth strategy alternatives that staff and consultants will study over the next several months to determine how the City should grow over the next 20 years.
The three strategies reflect amounts and types of growth to support three different population caps, or growth rates from the time the General Plan update is complete until 2035. The updated General Plan will likely be complete and adopted by the Council in 2016.
They also reflect different mixes of housing densities and different options for key properties termed “opportunity sites” throughout town, and variations on the type and density of development desired in downtown Morgan Hill.
The alternatives were selected after a series of public meetings and workshops conducted by City staff and consultant The Planning Center/DC&E, whom the City Council hired to conduct growth studies and projections that will inform the end result of the comprehensive update process.
The General Plan is the City’s blueprint for the long-term growth of Morgan Hill, with detailed elements for housing, land use, economic development and traffic. Cities are required to update their General Plans every 10 years.
After the Council, staff and the consultant study the three different alternative over the coming months, the Council will likely end up “mixing and matching” elements of each alternative into the final document, according to Councilman Larry Carr.
Morgan Hill Community Development Director Andrew Crabtree added, “I’d be very surprised if we picked one of those exact alternatives. The most important thing, I think, is the overall pace” of planned growth.
The Council’s decision at a special meeting followed a workshop on the alternatives with the Planning Commission and the General Plan Advisory Committee Wednesday night.
Following are key attributes of the three alternatives:
– Alternative A: Caps the City’s population at 60,000 in 2035; new housing development would be 60 percent single-family, 40 percent multi-family; limited expansion of the City’s current boundaries.
– Alternative B: Caps the City’s population at 65,000 in 2035; new housing would be 70 percent single-family, 30 percent multi-family; “regularization” of the City’s current boundaries, accommodating some single-family neighborhoods currently just outside the City limits.
– Alternative C: Caps the City’s population at 70,000 in 2035; new housing would be 50 percent single-family, 50 percent multi-family; expands the City limits to a “moderate degree,” according to a City staff report.
The City’s population current estimated population is about 43,100, according to the staff report. The different alternative growth rates are based on “the range of growth rates that Morgan Hill has experienced at different times since the year 2000.” Alternative C, which would plan for the highest population of the three options, assumes a growth rate of 2.3 percent.
All three alternatives include full implementation of the City’s Downtown Specific Plan, which encourages higher-density housing downtown, along with mixed-use commercial and residential uses for new projects, City staff said.
Although there was some question among GPAC members and Planning Commissioners about the range in growth rates selected by City staff and consultants for the different alternatives, the Council thought the suggested population caps were more important than growth rates. The goal of the City’s 30-year-old residential growth control system is to keep the population capped at specific levels during specified time periods.
“I’m totally focused on the population cap because that’s the way we’ve always done it,” Mayor Steve Tate said.
Following discussion, the Council also added a “corridor” along Main Avenue between Monterey Road and Peak Avenue as an opportunity site for future downtown expansion and development; and asked the consultant to identify different possible locations to accommodate “upscale apartment complexes.”
The opportunity sites are properties – 24 throughout Morgan Hill – identified by the consultant as having a potentially significant effect on future growth. These sites are either undeveloped or in the process of development, or their owners have indicated a desire to develop them in the future.
One of the opportunity sites is the DePaul Medical Center on DePaul Drive in northeast Morgan Hill. The property was a frequent topic of discussion at Wednesday’s General Plan workshop at the Community and Cultural Center, as its owner – Daughters of Charity Health System – recently applied for a General Plan amendment to rezone the 24.5-acre site for a senior residential community.
A number of doctors who have offices at the DePaul center spoke during public comments at the workshop, pleading with the commissioners and Council members not to rezone the property, and instead try to develop it into a fully equipped acute care hospital. Doing so would be the best way to serve the medical needs of South County residents now and for the foreseeable future.
The General Plan amendment – along with 10 others submitted by developers of other opportunity sites in Morgan Hill – will be presented to the Planning Commission March 11, and to the Council March 19.
DCHS Chief Financial Officer David Carroll said after the meeting, “We appreciate there’s a difference of opinion, and we’ll be ready for the March 11 meeting” where DCHS will present a plan to the City that will “keep and expand healthcare services in Morgan Hill.”
For more information on the ongoing General Plan update process, go to the City’s website dedicated to the project at www.morganhill2035.org.
