City Manager Bill Avera gave a recent presentation to business leaders on the history of growth in Hollister, current development projects, housing unit numbers and a new northern commercial development.
Avera spoke Feb. 8 at a San Benito County Chamber of Commerce luncheon hosted at Paine’s Restaurant. The audience consisted of chamber members, residents and local officials including Fire Chief Bob Martin Del Campo, Police Chief David Westrick and Councilman Ray Friend.
Avera began his presentation by talking about Hollister’s history with economic development.
“In 1995, the City of Hollister adopted a new general plan,” Avera said. “It was pretty progressive during that time. We had a tremendous amount of growth in the late 90s and early 2000s … to the point where we, the City of Hollister, enacted a growth management effort and, eventually, it was voted on by the citizens of Hollister. That growth measure was called Measure U,” Avera said.
Measure U limited the number of building allocations to 244 per year, Avera said. He clarified there’s a difference between an allocation and a building permit. An allocation is a tool the city used for developers to go through the process of getting to the planning commission and getting a project approved, he said.
Avera then addressed the “incident” in 2002 when a 15 million gallon sewage spill into the San Benito River caused the Central Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board to impose a building moratorium. Construction was shut down until Hollister finished building a new, nine-figure treatment plant in 2008.
“Then, of course, as many of you know, we had an incident with the regional water quality control board,” Avera said. “Many people feel it was a direct result of a levee break and I will not stand here and try to tell you otherwise. It could absolutely have had a lot to do with it. But at the same time what was going on is the regional water quality control board questioned the amount of effluent that was going into our treatment plant at that time.”
The city is still recovering from the moratorium, which affected homes, industrial jobs and commercial development.
Avera moved through when Hollister adopted a new general plan in 2005 and addressed the moratorium’s lifting.
“In 2008, getting closer to our recent history, the building moratorium was lifted by the regional water quality control board,” Avera said. “Then in 2009 we started accepting those allocations. Again, we had several years where there was nothing happening. So we adopted a growth management system.”
Hollister allocated 709 units in 2009 and 488 in 2010, Avera said. Then Measure U sunsetted in 2012. The city currently doesn’t have a growth management ordinance in place, he said.
A packet handed out before the presentation stated that, assuming Measure U continued, allocations for 2013 through 2016 would be equal to another 976 units. Avera said the city council and planning commission have only entitled 471 of those units.
“There’s about 500 units that still are not technically being accounted for under really, really strict growth control measures,” he said. “Again, we’re far less than what we could be at even if we had that growth management ordinance in place.”
Avera talked about the packet’s list of projects in various stages of development and the city’s various plans. He then turned to housing growth.
The presentation packet included a list of Hollister building activity (housing) from the year 1963 to 2015. The construction ban’s impact was visible in the list, with zero single-family dwelling units and zero multi-family dwelling units built from 2002 to 2007. Sixteen single-family dwelling units were built in 2008, according to the list.
“Then you have modest growth in 2015,” Avera said. “The number of homes completed and moved in was 143. It’s not quite as significant as most of you thought, but yet it is growth, nonetheless.”
Avera said 143 homes were completed in 2016 with 193 still under construction. He then talked about new commercial development on the horizon.
“You’re going to start to see some of that commercial development continue to the north,” Avera said. “The project is slated to have about 129,000 square feet of retail on that site. I can’t necessarily tell you all of the names that are going to be there, but I promise every one of you you’ve all heard of them. It’s pretty typical for every other community that’s about our size. You’re going to start to see the amenities coming to town that we usually go 12 miles to the north to get.”
Sales tax is Hollister’s only real means of survival, Avera said.
“Sales tax dollars in the City of Hollister isn’t going to go sort of up with the growth of the community,” Avera said. “Because it’s kind of exponential, right? The people that are already here aren’t going to Gilroy any longer. Not only are we picking up the new dollars from the new people coming to town buying goods and services, but we’re getting the advantage of having the people who normally go to the north.”
In November 2016, local voters approved Measure W, a 20-year extension of Hollister’s 1 percent sales tax. The extension was approved with 78.88 percent of the vote, according to the county elections office.
Measure W was an extension of Measure E, a five-year sales tax approved in 2012. County voters initially approved the tax in 2007 as Measure T. Email communications obtained through a records request called into question whether city employees properly followed a state law barring them from doing any campaign work on city time or resources.
Avera published letters on the city’s website that highlighted reasons for voters to support the measure on Election Day. At the time, Avera contended his posts on the sales tax extension were merely informational and didn’t count as campaigning.
It’s expected that Measure W will contribute $4.5 million annually to the city’s general fund.
Construction on the commercial development project could “hopefully” start within six months, Avera said. He ended his presentation by praising the council for bringing the city back to financial stability.
“From a financial perspective in the city, one of the things you folks also have to be very proud of in this community is the job the city council has done … to put us in a financially stable spot now,” Avera said. “As you know, we struggled for many years. Probably since 2002 around the building moratorium time. We are finally recovering from that. And you folks that voted yes on Measure W, from me personally to you, thank you.”
