The San Juan Bautista City Council voted to merge the Historic
Resources Board with the Planning Commission, a move that
supporters say will make the planning process faster and easier, as
well as saving the city money.
San Juan Bautista – Some of the City of History’s biggest advocates for historical preservation are out of a job.
On Tuesday, the San Juan Bautista City Council voted to merge the Historic Resources Board with the Planning Commission, a move that supporters say will make the planning process faster and easier, as well as saving the city money.
“We are not doing away with the rules,” Councilman George Dias said. “The rules will be followed. We just made it easier for property owners to go through the process.”
The current Planning Commission will be taking on both roles for now, City Manager Jan McClintock said Tuesday, although the City Council may also be appointing new planning commissioners in the coming months. For the Mission City to keep its “certified local government” status with the state – which makes the city eligible for certain grants – at least two planning commissioners will need to receive training from the State Historic Preservation Office.
Combining the two meetings will mean lower expenses for the cash-strapped city, McClintock said.
The tension between preservation and growth can be a hot-button issue in San Juan Bautista, and the fate of the Historic Resources Board was no exception. At Tuesday’s meeting, Planning Commissioner Michael Ostrowski declared, “The word ‘gobbledygook’ comes to mind.”
Ostrowski said it doesn’t make sense to combine the two groups because they’re “learned on different topics.” He added that doing things the easy or cheap way doesn’t always lead to the best result.
“Why don’t we just appointment somebody king?” he asked.
HRB member Ted Thoeny, a San Benito County resident, told the Free Lance on Thursday that he still hadn’t heard about the council’s decision.
“When it was first established, I think we did a lot of good,” Thoeny said. “There were a lot of projects that were not allowed to move forward, that were stalemated for the Planning Commission, so I think we were able to save time for the Planning Commission.”
But Thoeny also noted that the HRB was just an advisory body to the Planning Commission and the City Council.
“I don’t know if it was allowed to be that effective,” he said. “If they’re listening to us, that’s great. If they’re not, then they’re just wasting our time. … Ultimately, it’s up to the City Council.”
With a layer of bureaucracy removed from the planning process, downtown property owners will be more inclined to repair and improve their buildings, Dias said.
