By Marty Richman
One did not have to be a trained observer of body language to
detect the uncomfortable undercurrent that permeated the Hollister
City Council’s April 16 approval of the environmental impact report
for Awards Homes’ 677-unit development project.
One did not have to be a trained observer of body language to detect the uncomfortable undercurrent that permeated the Hollister City Council’s April 16 approval of the environmental impact report for Awards Homes’ 677-unit development project.
The meeting was reported well by the Free Lance, but you had to be there to appreciate the moment.
Negative assessments from the overwhelming majority of the public were only exceeded by the negativity of the advance apologies as the council members held their collective noses and cast a majority vote for approval.
Tony Ruiz summed up the public’s attitude: “This (project) is a dinosaur,” he said.
Councilwoman Monica Johnson weighed in: “If we had been there at the beginning, the project would have looked really different.”
Translation: This stinks, but we are stuck with it. That does not even qualify as damning with faint praise, it’s just damning – period.
With all of that, I still cannot fault the council for their votes. After all, the fix was in and all sides were part of the deal.
Ultimate approval of exactly what we do NOT need was essentially guaranteed by an out of court settlement between the city, the developer and LAFCO and we are bound to honor such agreements.
It is water under the bridge and we will just have to live with it, or should I say live to regret it.
My major concern is that this council or the next, or the next after that will continue to do the same old song and dance – point backwards and chant, “They didn’t fix it so we’re stuck again, stuck again and stuck again.”
Everyone in town knows the words.
It is long past the time when the city government should have put together standards and a comprehensive plan to evaluate future development proposals.
The willy-nilly method of incomplete analysis and undocumented preferences based on “how do I feel today” is simply a formula for more development disaster.
If they do not do it, who will? And if not now, when?
Considering the length of time it takes to move most development projects along, few on the City Council are ever likely to see a major project from beginning to end. Therefore, every council member will eventually get to blame his or her predecessors.
That is the problem when any group operates from the seat of their pants.
What is necessary for continuity and progress are documented policies outlining the requirements and defining what projects SHOULD look like.
Developers cannot read the minds of the council and neither can the citizens.
The council needs to put “the vision thing” on paper so the citizens can see it, provide input, and adopt it as a standard, all this long before projects get to that last and final vote.
The council then has a standard against which members can weigh the pros and cons of any specific proposal.
One speaker pointed out a fact that I have consistently tried to make with the citizens – impact fees do not pay for ongoing services. A city can collect impact fees galore and still go broke due the recurring costs for ongoing services.
Strangely, Hollister does not seem to have a formal process for estimating the total fiscal impact of proposed developments.
Evaluation of long-term fiscal impact is at least as critical to community viability as the vaunted EIR.
Without such data the only thing the council can say is the impact fees will cover the capital requirements and that’s not nearly enough to keep us out of bankruptcy court.
There are professional firms that do that work for a living and we should require that developers select a neutral, approved firm and pay for that analysis (along with copies of everything for the Web site so the commuting public can stay informed).
Major developers who claim they just cannot wait to give the city’s general fund millions of dollars out of the goodness of their hearts certainly would not mind such an inconsequential expense.
Development is a critical part of any community’s life cycle. It determines what the community will become.
There is no such thing as a perfect development – they all bring both benefits and penalties.
The general plan has the right numbers for development. Now, let us get the right design.
Without critical information and a vision for the future, we have no control over the process and cannot make informed decisions. Dinosaurs make for good movies, but not good communities. It is time for this City Council to get ahead of the power curve and prepare for the future because it is already here and we will be paying for today’s mistakes for 30 years.
Marty Richman is a Hollister resident.
