Measure to ask voters for 100 additional units
Morgan Hill – A ballot measure asking voters to approve speedier downtown growth is off to the races after being approved Wednesday by the Morgan Hill City Council.
The measure asks November voters to allow for the approval of an additional 100 housing units downtown, besides the 250 annual allotments currently allowed. It would also let other projects currently in motion be completed sooner.
Proponents of the city-drafted plan, which would alter parts of popular voter-initiated Measure C aimed at hedging suburban sprawl, say the new set of growth rules is necessary to boost a downtown core that has struggled over the last two decades as the city’s population has mushroomed and more and more shopping dollars have migrated to outlying strip malls.
Enacted by voters in 2004, Measure C sets limits on the number of housing units that can be developed each year – usually an average of 250. Each year, developers compete for those allotments based on the strength of their project designs and the city’s housing needs. The law sets a course of population growth to 48,000 by the year 2020.
The primary objective of the ballot measure – which was batted around by the city’s Community and Economic Development subcommittee for months – is to have voters decide if downtown housing and mixed-use project developments can occur within a more concentrated and flexible timeframe to allow earlier implementation of the Downtown Plan.
In March 2006, 363 allotments were awarded to housing projects located within the downtown boundaries as specified by Measure C. But under the current ordinance, many of those are not to be occupied for a number of years leading up to 2010. The proposed amendment allows the city to streamline this staggered development schedule without hastening housing development outside the downtown core.
“Nobody wants to live in a construction zone” for years, said Morgan Hill Community Development Director Kathy Molloy Previsich, alluding to how folks seeking downtown housing may want to live in a densely populated area. “It’s different than suburban development, where you have a lot of space and it makes sense (for example) to build five units at a time.”
The amendment also asks voters to allow 100 additional housing units to be located within the downtown core, defined as south of Main Street, north of Dunne Avenue, east of Del Monte Avenue and west of the railroad tracks.
The city council would draft procedures for awarding those additional housing projects should the amendment pass. Chances are they would be awarded sooner than later, Molloy Previsich said.
Some downtown watchers think a flurry of mixed-use development would help solve the perception that Morgan Hill isn’t “hip” enough.
“Singles, young couples, they don’t want the big houses, they don’t want the yards,” said Dan Craig, former executive director of the Morgan Hill Downtown Association, who enjoys walking to Monterey Road from his house on Peak Avenue. “I think I speak for a large market group. They want to have fun on the weekends, walk down to the coffee shop.”
As it stands, only a tiny percentage of the city’s sales tax revenue – about $100,000-$130,000 per year – is generated downtown, according to city economic reports, and some downtown stake holders have expressed concerns over luring new shop owners into the city’s “living room” once the new Cochrane Road shopping center anchored by Target is completed next year east of Highway 101.
Longtime business owner Brad Jones, who runs BookSmart with his wife Cinda Meister, told the council Wednesday that the city should quit stalling the cultural and economic growth of its core district.
“I’m urging you to take the foot off the throat of downtown,” he told the council, which would later vote unanimously to place the initiative on the ballot.
