Morgan Hill’s boundaries won’t be expanding by more than 300 acres any time soon, after the Santa Clara County Local Agency Formation Commission voted March 11 to deny two annexation requests by city officials.
Following four hours of public comment and discussion, the seven-member commission voted 5-2 to deny the city’s proposal to expand its Urban Service Area around 229 acres of farmland in the Southeast Quadrant (SEQ).
That motion followed a failed effort by three of the commissioners to annex only the 40-acre portion of the SEQ project that is tagged as the future site of the private St. John XXIII Catholic High School. Commissioner Johnny Khamis (San Jose City Councilmember) joined Commissioners Mike Wasserman (county supervisor) and Cat Tucker (Gilroy Councilmember) to support that partial annexation.
Only Wasserman and Tucker opposed the denial of the entirety of the SEQ plan—a motion made by Commissioner Susan Vicklund Wilson.
Ultimately, the majority of the commission agreed that the SEQ annexation would violate LAFCO’s primary duties: to limit urban sprawl, encourage infill development in existing city boundaries and to preserve farmland and open space.
Although the LAFCO decision was not a complete surprise—the commission’s staff issued a scathing report in February recommending denial of the city’s proposals—the dismay among SEQ proponents was palpable in the county meeting chambers following the vote. City officials, farmers, SEQ property owners, youth sports advocates and the San Jose Diocese spoke in favor of the plan during the March 11 public comments.
“We are obviously disappointed that what’s been a 10-year planning process has been denied in such a dismissing fashion,” City Councilmember Larry Carr said. “But that doesn’t mean Morgan Hill is going to stop trying to preserve agriculture. The landowners have hung in there for 10 years, and now a yet-to-be-defined county process is going to ask them to hang on longer.”
The county-led process Carr referred to is the Sustainable Agricultural Conservation Framework. The county and the Santa Clara Valley Open Space Authority received a $100,000 grant last year to work on the framework, which would apply a regional effort to preserve prime farmland on urban edges throughout Santa Clara County—similar to the SEQ properties the city proposes developing into sports fields and related commercial uses (with a new Sports-Recreation-Leisure zoning).
The draft countywide framework won’t be complete until 2017, after which the county will compete for a share of $40 million in public cap-and-trade funds to preserve farmland.
This countywide effort to preserve ag and the city’s ag mitigation plan in the SEQ have been seen by observers as competing interests leading up to the March 11 vote.
“It’s really troubling that the city has been at this for 10 years, and yet haven’t heeded the siren call of so many organizations and individuals” who have consistently pointed out the SEQ project’s shortfalls, Commissioner Linda LeZotte said at the March 11 meeting. “The city is part of a region and state that has an interest in preserving agriculture. There are a whole slew of things this project doesn’t conform to.”
LeZotte and other commissioners said the city’s boundary expansion request and proposed “conversion of prime farmland” are “premature.”
Added Commissioner Sequoia Hall, “I know (the city) is dedicated to a path of a sustainable living community, but I don’t think this plan gets us all the way there…We should be focusing on more regional cooperation, and get rid of this ‘doing it yourself’ mentality. This (SEQ) ag preservation plan is a little more ‘do it yourself.’”
And while most of the commissioners agreed there is a need for a new high school in South County, as well as more youth sports facilities in Morgan Hill, a motion by Wasserman to annex only the future Catholic high school property failed.
“I want to support the high school, I want to see ball fields, but they need to be aware of where they are going in the community,” Hall added. “Ball fields are commercial. The (proposed) SRL complex should be treated more commercially. Sports fields should be planned where the community is…You should not go outside your jurisdiction—rezone and be creative within your jurisdiction.”
City Manager Steve Rymer said in his 15-minute presentation on the SEQ plan that a key aspect of the project is to embrace the already growing reputation of Morgan Hill as a regional youth sports destination, and build more facilities that can achieve that goal. Last year, the city paid $5.3 million to purchase 22 acres of farmland in the SEQ to build baseball/softball fields (next to the intersection of Tennant Avenue and U.S. 101).
Development of these facilities in the 229-acre SRL district would finance agricultural preservation farther east in the SEQ with mitigation fees, which would be supplemented by up to $6 million in the city’s open space fund.
Although LAFCO staff and commissioners noted that the city has plenty of vacant land inside its city limits on which to build sports facilities, Rymer noted most of this land is commercial and industrial, and thus not suitable for such uses.
“We don’t believe using our vacant commercial lands (for sports) is a responsible use of those lands moving forward,” Rymer told the commission.
A total of 50 members of the public spoke during the March 11 public hearing before the commission voted on the SEQ proposal. Those opposed to the plan included environmental and open space advocates as well as interested residents.
Bible Church, mushroom farm annexation denied again
Not to be overlooked on the March 11 LAFCO agenda was another application by the city to expand the USA around about 70 acres in southwest Morgan Hill, south of Watsonville Road.
The commission voted 4-3 in favor of denying the request, with Wasserman, Tucker and Khamis opposed.
The annexation request of the area known as “Area 2” included Royal Oaks Mushrooms’ property, Oakwood School, Morgan Hill Bible Church, adjacent residential properties, a strip mall and other remaining farmland.
The city wanted to expand the USA in order to make its borders more orderly, and bring in some of the properties to the USA that are already in the city limits, according to the city’s application.
Owners of the Morgan Hill Bible Church property supported the annexation because they want to take advantage of nearby city services and infrastructure.
During commission discussion, Khamis said it is “almost ridiculous” to not allow the church to hook up to nearby sewer lines, which would eliminate their need to maintain a septic leach field on the property.
Royal Oaks owner Don Hordness plans to move his agricultural operation to another area and sell his Morgan Hill site for a 123-unit senior housing complex. He presented LAFCO with an executed agreement with the city to pay mitigation fees to permanently preserve an equal acreage of agricultural land elsewhere in town in exchange for building on top of his existing farmland.
“It should be stated this (agreement) is the first of its kind in the county,” Hordness told the commission. He added that the area surrounding the mushroom farm on Watsonville Road is no longer compatible with agriculture, with increasing traffic and the “odiferous effects” on growing residential neighborhoods and the K-12 school.
Carr said after the meeting that the commission’s vote on Area 2 was “even more shocking” than the denial of the SEQ plan. He added that LAFCO, county planning, the OSA and others keep telling the city that its agricultural mitigation plan is inadequate, but they have never specified exactly what is missing or how it could be improved.
In 2013, LAFCO considered an earlier request to annex the same properties. That request was denied because the city and Hordness did not have a plan to mitigate the loss of agriculture. Now that such a plan is in place, LAFCO staff and a majority of commissioners think it doesn’t do enough to preserve farmland.
