Last week, the City Council passed a General Plan that will
guide Hollister’s growth and development over the next 20 years,
and in doing so set a good example that the San Benito County
government should follow.
Last week, the City Council passed a General Plan that will guide Hollister’s growth and development over the next 20 years, and in doing so set a good example that the San Benito County government should follow.
City leaders – the current Council as well as the previous Council that set the project in motion – worked with ample public input and devised a blueprint for our city’s future. We like what we see – an attempt through thoughtful planning to reign in the sprawling development of the 1990s that overburdened the city’s infrastructure and stretched city services to the max.
Take a look at some of the goals in Hollister’s General Plan:
n Encourage concentric development working outward from the city’s core
n Revitalize downtown Hollister by encouraging a mix of commercial and residential space
n Create commercial and residential development at the city’s north and west gateways which are eyesores now
n Develop small neighborhood-serving retail centers in the city
The important part about this process is that Hollister’s leaders, with public input, have created a vision for the community they represent and that is something the county sorely needs.
San Benito County is operating on an antiquated General Plan that doesn’t consider the sweeping changes the county has undergone in the last few decades. Only two of the General Plan’s eight elements have been updated in the last 10 years, and several haven’t been updated since the early 1980’s. That’s hardly keeping pace with the dynamic changes in our county.
A General Plan is a blueprint that guides development, growth, transportation, population centers and even the economy. Brining those elements into the modern era is what we need to deal with San Benito County’s growth. The current course, which promotes patchwork planning, will lead to endless rounds of finger-pointing and political bickering.
A comprehensive update will require considerable effort and community involvement. And the county – and organizations like Vision San Benito, which is working on it’s own long-term plan for our future – needs to view the Hollister plan as a component of what it’s doing and ensure that all the plans work in harmony.
It’s time to draw a road map for San Benito County’s future. Hollister has proven it can be done.
