A showdown on a controversial slow-growth ordinance is expected
Tuesday as the Board of Supervisors must certify a referendum to
repeal the measure that some say violates farmers’ and ranchers’
property rights.
A showdown on a controversial slow-growth ordinance is expected Tuesday as the Board of Supervisors must certify a referendum to repeal the measure that some say violates farmers’ and ranchers’ property rights.
The Board approved by a 4-1 vote last month the slow-growth initiative that proponents say will strengthen agricultural policies of the county’s General Plan and help preserve open space and conservation measures of the land’s resources.
However, after a three-week referendum campaign, the agricultural heritage group Farmers and Citizens to Protect our Agricultural Heritage collected 5,340 voter signatures and submitted them to the county clerk’s office on April 28.
The clerk’s office took a random sample of 500 signatures and found that 426, or 85 percent, were valid, which was more than enough to consider the petition as valid, according to the state elections code.
Supervisors will be faced with two options when County Clerk John Hodges presents the referendum for certification at the 9:30 a.m. meeting Tuesday.
State law dictates the Board must either repeal the slow-growth initiative, which was turned into County Ordinance 760, or send it to a vote of the people during the March 2 primary election of 2004.
“It seems like a simple, straight-forward thing to me, and that is to have this go to the voters,” Supervisor Reb Monaco said.
Monaco was the only member of the Board who voted to have the growth issue placed on the ballot so voters could decide.
“I think it’s up to the voters to decide this kind of thing. That’s what I thought at first and I’m not going to change my mind now,” Monaco said.
Supervisor Bob Cruz, who voted in favor of the initiative, agreed with Monaco’s sentiments.
“There should be no discussion whatsoever. This should be sent to a vote of the people,” Cruz said. “I don’t know what else we can do.”
Hodges estimated the cost of placing the ordinance on the ballot during the statewide election would cost about $15,700.
Originally, the growth initiative was brought about by a grass-roots effort by the Citizens for Responsible Growth in San Benito County.
The growth ordinance’s re-zoning aspect is different from the county’s existing provisions in that it takes much of the land currently in agricultural productive designation and reduces it from five-acre designation to 20-acre. The ordinance also designates agricultural rangeland area from 40-acre designation to 160-acre designation
“This is intended to limit and stabilize development at a level that the county can live with,” group spokesperson Janet Brians said in an earlier interview.
The group collected 5,684 signatures in a petition drive in support of the initiative.
Brians, a longtime resident, said the initiative was not intended to bring all development in the county to an end.
She said the initiative would redirect growth within the city of Hollister by “filling in” open and unused areas of the city first, and then by suggesting that any other developments be placed in areas other than prime agriculture lands.
The ordinance is expected to limit new housing to about 2 percent of the number of households in unincorporated areas. Senior, modest, low and very low income housing would be given special consideration.
However, opponents of the ordinance said the measure would ruin farmers’ and ranchers’ ability to make a profit on their own land and violated their rights as property owners.
The coalition of farmers, ranchers and concerned property owners, headed by Tom Tobias, president of the San Benito County Farm Bureau, needed only 1,271 valid signatures to force a vote on the measure.
“We as the farmers and ranchers whose livelihoods are threatened by this measure will not allow the Supervisors action to go unchallenged,” Tobias said.
