Documentary offers ideas on smart growth
Will the Hollister of the future be a town of impersonal sprawl
or community-oriented, environmentally-friendly infill? Will the
city continue to be a bedroom community where most people commute
out of town to work or will it offer local jobs and a vibrant
downtown where people walk more and drive less?
Documentary offers ideas on smart growth
Will the Hollister of the future be a town of impersonal sprawl or community-oriented, environmentally-friendly infill? Will the city continue to be a bedroom community where most people commute out of town to work or will it offer local jobs and a vibrant downtown where people walk more and drive less?
These are some of the questions that will be discussed at an event dubbed “Imagine Hollister: Hometown of the Future,” sponsored by Hollister People for Peace.
The Wednesday, Dec. 3 event will take place at 7 p.m. in the Barbara Room of the San Benito County Library, 470 Fifth St. The discussion is built around a showing of the documentary, “Save Our Land, Save Our Towns,” by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Thomas Hylton.
The movie shows how city centers lose their vitality when people move away from downtowns to the suburbs, said organizer Mary Zanger. It’s a scenario playing out locally, she said.
“We see all the vacancies in town and the tendency to build outside of the city limits,” Zanger said. “If we can get people to work in town and we pursue infill development after the passage of Measure Y, we could have a town that has convenient bike paths and a walkable downtown.”
Measure Y is a recent ballot measured approved by voters that will exempt residential projects in downtown Hollister from the city growth allocations.
She said some might consider her an idealist, but she believes that Hollister could be a place where “we can grow inside and up instead of out” through the concept of infill, where development first occurs within the downtown and city limits instead of pushing further into the city’s agricultural boundaries.
The hour-long Hylton documentary, she said, highlights what has happened in towns that have undertaken smart growth compared to those where sprawl is the norm.
“We’ve seen a growth in traffic and congestion over the years,” said Zanger, who has lived in San Benito County for 55 years. “We have to keep people involved in the planning of our community.”
A brainstorming session after the showing of the documentary could foster that discussion, she said.
“Disagreements [about] growth are great because then we get to learn more from people with different views,” she said. “Growth is good. We want growth – we just don’t want sprawl.”
Natasha Wist, another member of Hollister People for Peace, said the documentary is “quite relevant in light of the fact that the General Plan Advisory Committee will start meeting in December to give input on what we want in the final [growth] plan for the county.”
Her group wants to raise “the issues of how the city and county will coordinate smart and sustainable growth,” she said. “This is a film that illustrates aspects of smart growth versus extremely poor planning in different urban and rural areas of the United States. It’s an illustration of the best and worst of city and county planning.”
Having public discussions about the future growth of Hollister and San Benito County is critical to the area’s future, Wist said.
“For me, the most important thing to determine the kind of community that we end up with is the input and involvement of the people in our community,” she said. “We are trying to stimulate the interest of the residents and empower them to work together to create a livable community.”
For more information about the documentary screening and discussion, contact Natasha Wist at 630-1059 or Mary Zanger at 637-6445. Snacks will follow the screening of the movie.
