LandWatch Urges Moratorium Below is a letter to the board of supervisors urging their adoption of a moratorium on General Plan amendments pending a full review of the Grand Jury report. LandWatch also ran an announcement in local newspapers to alert the public about the amendment of the General plan to allow Rancho Chular II. Please contact the Monterey County Board of Supervisors in support of this position: Supervisor Simon Salinias email: mocosd1@moco.monterey.ca.us Supervisor Judy Pennycook email: mocosd2@moco.monterey.ca.us Supervisor Tom Perkins email: mocosd3@moco.monterey.ca.us Supervisor Edith Johnson email: mocosd4@moco.monterey.ca.us Supervisor David Potter email: mocosd5@ix.netcom.com Fax: 755-5888 February 6, 1998 The Honorable David Potter, Chair Monterey County Board of Supervisors 1200 Aguajito Road, Suite 001 Monterey, California 93940 Dear Chairman Potter and Members of the Board of Supervisors, LandWatch Monterey County is a new nonprofit organization whose goals are to maintain and improve the quality of life in Monterey County through land use planning. In recent months, we have started to evaluate the County's management of land use, with a view to working with the County to achieve a healthy balance between economic growth, demand for housing, conservation of agricultural lands, open space, and environmental quality. Population forecasts prepared by AMBAG and approved by your Board and other elected officials project that in the next 23 years Monterey County will grow 40%, adding more than 160,000 people to today's 340,000. Management of this magnitude of growth demands careful, long-term planning. LandWatch looks forward to assisting in this goal and developing close and constructive working relationships with the Board, its Planning Commission, and County staff. The impacts of this week's storms reinforce the urgency of our mutual interests in quality of life, public health and welfare. While to a large extent unavoidable, the impacts of flooding, mud slides, road closures, and other disasters are often exacerbated by poor planning. Our ability to plan for and fund adequate public services and respond to the human misery that natural disasters generate is a measure of our planning foresight. The County currently faces a variety of critical land use decisions. Your decisions today will affect the quality of life in Monterey County for generations to come. On the basis of our preliminary review of County planning trends, we strongly urge you to adopt a moratorium on any amendments to the County's General Plan until the Grand Jury's report is fully addressed. We also urge your consideration of the following: Grand Jury Report In support of the 1997 Monterey County Grand Jury Final Report, the Board should evaluate through a review of the General Plan the cumulative impacts of the many developments that will come before you. The Grand Jury Report notes that the General Plan is the basic charter that embodies fundamental land use decisions and governs the direction of future land use in the County. The Report identifies the need for a "current plan and a clear cut process" to guide land use decisions. Specifically, the Grand Jury recommends that the Board of Supervisors take the following steps: "The Monterey County General Plan be updated immediately." "The county establish a systematic on-going process to manage the General Plan with new, specific, and effective practices to keep the public better informed of land use plans, proposals, and decisions." We urge you to adopt these reasonable, common-sense recommendations. Annual Report on County Plan State law requires that the County Planning Department provide an annual report to the legislative body on the status of the plan and progress in its implementation (Government Code Section 65400(b) 1). This should be a top priority for the County, and we urge you to direct the Planning Department to respond to this legislative requirement as soon as possible. Proposal to Amend the Zoning for Chualar In light of our recommendation for a moratorium on any General Plan amendments until the Grand Jury's report is addressed, we urge you to deny the current proposal to rezone farmlands in the Chualar area from farmland to residential use until the cumulative impacts of this and other projects on the General Plan are fully evaluated. This rezoning disregards the General Plan as a tool to achieve land use goals for the County. Thank you for your consideration. I look forward to your response and to working with you on these and other land use matters in the future. Sincerely,   Michael DeLapa President, LandWatch
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