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COUNTY GENERAL PLAN UPDATE

From The Carmel Pine cone

LandWatch discusses affordable housing, general plan

By KIMBERLY WHITE

Published: April 16, 2004

THE COUNTY'S new general plan has been "downgraded and diluted" by "agricultural and development interests" since the first draft was released at the end of 2001, according to Gary Patton, the executive director of LandWatch Monterey County.

He spoke Wednesday evening to a group of 35 at Baja Cantina in Carmel Valley.

According to Patton, the proposed general plan was better after the first three stages of its development.

Stage one of the plan involved community outreach to find out what it wanted from the plan, Patton said. Stage two dealt with the formulation of general guiding principles, and the initial draft based on those principles was created during stage three.

But now, "the signs are not encouraging" that the plan will be a good one. Patton maintained.

The board of supervisors will probably decide in June or July whether to adopt it, he said, with the next public hearing set for April 21.

A large portion of the 90-minute meeting revolved around what Patton called the "design for housing affordability," which uses land-use policies to encourage construction of affordable housing in already developed areas. Patton said communities in which residents can walk to and from work and school ultimately will cut costs as well as provide environmental benefits.

"The question is not whether we should grow, but how we should grow," he said.

One idea brought forward was encouraging developers to build affordable-housing units in commercial zones. Developers often want to upgrade shopping areas or change then in some way, Patton said, and they could build homes at the same time instead of acquiring new land.

"Urban infill"--creating more homes in an already established urban area--is better than "suburban sprawl." he said, and people need to learn to work with the new development within their communities instead of fighting it every step of the way.

The initial cost of development in urban areas will be greater simply because the cost of land is high, he admitted, but infrastructure savings would cut costs in the long run.

And with urban infill, "you'd have better cities 25 or 30 years from now," Patton asserted.