Project will still take years before it goes to vote
After years of talking up a project for a mini-city called El
Rancho San Benito, DMB staff planned to hand in a proposal to the
San Benito County planning department Dec. 27.
Project will still take years before it goes to vote
After years of talking up a project for a mini-city called El Rancho San Benito, DMB staff planned to hand in a proposal to the San Benito County planning department Dec. 27.
El Rancho San Benito is a proposed 6,800-unit development that DMB staff want to build north of Hollister, between Hwy. 101 and Hwy. 25.
Developers from DMB have been planning El Rancho San Benito for three years, Becker said. DMB staff held at least six meetings and workshops with county residents since 2005, according to documents from DMB.
Over the past few years, residents gave input on a multitude of topics, including traffic, economic development, housing, and education and public safety.
Currently, El Rancho San Benito is 4,500 acres of ranch and farmland, according to documents from DMB. Developers will acquire another 7,500 acres of adjacent ranchland soon, Becker said.
About 3,400 acres of the project will be set aside as permanent open space and agricultural land, he said.
Janet Brians and her husband Robert run an organic farm three miles down the road from the proposed project area. They have been there for 35 years, Janet Brians said.
Brians is concerned about noise and lights from the project.
“This is very flat farm area and sound travels very well,” Brians said. “That’s an immediate personal concern.”
The project should include the preservation of more farmland, particularly prime farmland, Brians said.
“People who have moved here have been here because of the more rural feel,” she said. “I appreciate what they plan to preserve, but I think they should preserve a lot more.”
“This county has not had a lot of significant proposals to look at,” said Art Henriques, the director of planning for San Benito County. “This will be a sort of new era.”
The application is a conceptual level plan that is known as a Master Community Specific Plan, Becker said.
It will explain the general layout of the project, Henriques said.
The application will show in what general area housing, offices and roads will be located. It will provide enough detail for voters to get a good idea of what the project will look like when it is complete, he said.
A plan that describes every individual parcel and building will come later.
The initial phase of the El Rancho San Benito does not include a high school, Becker said. It does include two schools for younger students.
“The major impact will be in the Aromas-San Juan school district,” said Tim Foley, San Benito County superintendent of schools. “They have a small high school and their educational philosophy is built around small, tightly controlled schools.”
Although the educational philosophy at Anzar High School in San Juan Bautista is based on a small school with a community feel, Foley does not think that the influx of students will degrade the quality of education at the school.
“Planned growth and sustained growth is what is going to benefit our schools,” Foley said. “It’s the fits and starts that are a killer.”
There will be a school mitigation agreement, a contract between the school board and DMB staff, in place by the time the project goes for a vote before the board of supervisors, he said.
“Like with any development, we go forward in good faith, and with a contract,” Foley said.
DMB staff will mitigate all the impact from the project on the local schools, Becker said.
After talking with officials from other school districts in the Phoenix area that DMB staff has partnered with, Foley is impressed with their track record.
El Rancho San Benito would include 5,440 market-rate and 1,360 below market-rate homes, according to documents from DMB.
A county ordinance requires that developments within the county but outside of Hollister and San Juan Bautista include 30 percent below-market-rate homes. DMB proposal does not meet the requirements.
“It is one of the more rigorous in the state,” Becker said. “There hasn’t been a single subdivision built under that law.”
To make up the difference, developers would provide financial assistance to housing programs in the city and impose a transfer fee of .5 percent on the resale of houses within the project, according to documents from DMB.
Such plans accomplish what the law intended, Becker said.
In February, the developers flew 25 county residents to Buckeye, Ariz. to visit another DMB development, Verrado Estates.
The picture-perfect town was a bit too perfect for a few San Benito County residents, according to an article in the Pinnacle that ran after the residents came back from Verrado.
El Rancho San Benito would not be a gated community for the upper-middle class, Becker said.
Diversity is a concern that developers have tried to plan for, Becker said.
The project will include a mix of condominiums, townhouses, single-family detached homes, single-story homes, two-story homes and live-work units, according to DMB documents.
“I think if you create the option for a full spectrum of housing, you will see a wide range of people,” he said. “We’re counting on the diversity.
In meetings with county residents, economic development was a major concern, Becker said.
Due to the easy commute off Hwy. 101, residents of El Rancho San Benito would be likely to shop in Gilroy, said Larry Cope, president and chief executive officer of the Gilroy Development Corporation, an organization whose goal is to promote economic development in Gilroy.
“Residents would be likely to go to Gilroy,” Cope said. ‘They would be in easy commute time.”
El Rancho San Benito will include 560,000 square feet of retail space, Becker said. That is about the same size as the Pacheco Pass Shopping Center in Gilroy.
It will also include 1.1 million square feet of light industrial space for a job center, Becker said. That is a little more than 25 acres.
But there is already a surplus of industrial space in the Bay Area, Cope said.
“Every industrial land creates more of a surplus,” he said.
The industrial space in Gilroy is in a better location than the industrial space in El Rancho San Benito would be, Cope said.
“We have a better location for industrial as far as access to the 101,” Cope said.
When asked why the project would be able to attract business when Hollister staff have struggled to bring in new jobs, Becker responded, “I think that question is maybe, why haven’t they come?”
In order to attract business, every community needs cheap land, an available work force, a good transportation system and affordable housing.
“Those four elements are legitimate,” Becker said.
Jeff Pyle, Hollister’s economic development manager, agrees.
San Benito County has inexpensive land and an available labor force, Becker said.
Referring to transportation, Becker said, “got a few problems there, but there are plans in the works.”
The Hwy. 156 bypass, Hwy. 152 extension and Hwy. 25 expansion would improve the transportation system in the county, he said.
The influx of residents might affect commute time, Cope said. Improvement to Hwy. 101 might be needed.
“Just like any development, it will have positive and negative impacts,” Cope said. “It may mean added commute time.”
The one thing Hollister does not have is affordable housing, Becker said.
If you build housing, businesses will come, he said. El Rancho San Benito will stimulate the demand for 8,800 permanent new jobs, according to documents from DMB.
If the San Benito County Board of Supervisors approves the project, county residents will vote it on. That will not happen for at least a couple of years, Henriques said.
Becker and Henriques agree that the public will have the opportunity to give more input before the project comes to a vote. Both imagine a series of public meetings.
Becker does not expect groundbreaking until 2011.
“This is not a business for the impatient,” he said.
