Measure A wrong choice for county

The Herald's View

Monterey County Herald
Posted on May 20, 2007

No one can pinpoint exactly when Monterey County's general plan process got off track, but it wasn't long after county administrators set an unattainable goal of making everyone happy. What they forgot is that a plan that upset no one would be no plan at all.

A general plan shows which property can be developed over the next 20 years and which cannot. An acre on one side of a map line may be worth $10,000. A similar acre just on the other side can be worth 50 times more. A general plan shows where affordable housing will take root. It can make it relatively easy to start or expand a business in some areas while dooming ventures in others.

With so much at stake, sending county planners off in search of consensus was hopeless in a county where lawyers and special-interest groups dominate the process. The folly became obvious as the first draft was discarded in favor of general plan update 2 (GPU2), followed by a more environmentally friendly draft, GPU3, and then, perhaps finally, the more business-friendly GPU4.

But just like development lawyers and the Farm Bureau wouldn't accept some of GPU3's environmentalist overtones, the slow-growthers couldn't tolerate GPU4, which creates additional growth pockets and allows supervisors to create additional pockets during the plan's lifespan. So the slow-growth camp created a competing vision, the Community General Plan Initiative, better known as Measure A on the June ballot.

It should have been obvious early on that we would end up here — consensus long forgotten, two divergent growth plans headed for a ballot-box showdown. It is a political dust storm whipped up by the business/development/ agriculture interests who essentially vetoed GPU3, the county supervisors who allowed that to happen, and slow-growth forces whose input was largely missing from GPU4. The public is left with a confounding ballot and a choice between two plans that sometimes confuse even the people who produced them.

GPU4 is the better choice. Compared with Measure A, it allows roughly twice as much growth in roughly twice as many places but it does not accommodate unbridled development. It also allows the Board of Supervisors to amend the plan periodically to accommodate development in unanticipated locations.

Measure A reacts to that — overreacts, unfortunately — by requiring a countywide vote to amend the plan.
Critics rightly contend that such a cumbersome process would be as flawed as the traditional amendment process, often heavily influenced by campaign contributions. Allowing major changes to the general plan only through a countywide ballot would be a mistake that could take decades to correct.
Ultimately, it is Measure A's fatal flaw.

The opposition to Measure A argues correctly that it is illogical to ask voters in Seaside and Big Sur to approve a housing project outside San Ardo, or to ask voters in Pacific Grove to help decide whether an agribusiness operation outside Greenfield really needs to change its approach to processing.

Ballot measures are important tools. They enable voters to do what elected officials are unable or unwilling to do. They enable voters to fix political mistakes. But even if the underlying intention is to prevent inappropriate growth, requiring regular ballot measures on relatively routine planning matters could thwart even clearly appropriate growth and distort the initiative process. As with any ballot measure, the outcomes of countywide ballots on plan amendments also could be manipulated by money or rhetoric. The process could put an unfair financial burden on some proponents, not all of whom would be well-heeled developers.

Measure A supporters can just as legitimately point to the unfairness of the current system, which, for instance, has allowed supervisors from Salinas, Moss Landing and Seaside to approve unpopular developments in Carmel Valley. But that fact of political life can be fixed in one or two election cycles by electing supervisors more receptive to public opinion. Measure A's requirement for countywide votes on amendments would set us on a convoluted 20-year course of planning by simple majority rule no matter whether the majority really was prepared for a decision.

Also tipping the scale toward GPU4, Measure C, is its impact on the most important land-use issue in the
county: affordable housing.

While Measure A and GPU4 proponents debate over details such as percentages of inclusionary housing and length of deed restrictions, the simple truth is that GPU4 allows more market-rate housing than Measure A and that more market-rate housing means more affordable housing for people who need it.

That's not to say that GPU4 is the answer to the affordability crisis. Far from it. The number of affordable units contemplated in GPU4 is barely a start. Far too many people live in situations that would shock many Monterey County voters. If GPU4 prevails, its supporters should bear an even larger share of the responsibility for making affordable housing a reality and the supervisors should bear a larger responsibility to use their amendment power wisely — to give priority to affordable housing and other projects benefiting the public, not just special interests.

Measure A should be defeated. Measure B, which is intended to overturn GPU4, should be defeated. Measure C, which adopts GPU4, is the one worthy of a yes vote.

Here's the bottom line: No, No, Yes.