GILROY
– A handful of Gilroyans fresh off its first political victory
yet still disgruntled over the loss of agricultural land in the
city’s latest general plan is the driving force behind a fledgling
environmental watchdog group.
GILROY – A handful of Gilroyans fresh off its first political victory yet still disgruntled over the loss of agricultural land in the city’s latest general plan is the driving force behind a fledgling environmental watchdog group.
An organization called Save Open Space Gilroy watched City Council Monday night send a farmland preservation bill back to the proverbial drawing board after the city received sharp criticism from the group in the form of a 14-page letter drafted by S.O.S. Gilroy’s San Francisco-based lawyers, Shute, Mihaly & Weinberger LLP.
Rife with criticisms and concerns, the attorney-drafted letter claimed the proposed farmland protection bill “may actually undermine the goals of the general plan” and would require the city to conduct another expensive environmental impact report. In contrast to the S.O.S. Gilroy document, two two-page letters – one from Santa Clara County’s environmental agency and another from its anti-sprawl and Gilroy-leery Local Agency Formation Commission (LAFCO) – read like thank-you cards.
According to the group’s spokesperson Connie Rogers, attorney intervention may be necessary over future environmental issues, too.
“I certainly hope we don’t have to resort to lawyers all the time. It’s very expensive, but it’s the only way to get the city’s attention,” Rogers said. “Otherwise the city doesn’t seem to be listening to the environmental voice.”
Rogers said the deaf-ear syndrome started in 1999 when Gilroy’s latest general plan was being drafted. The fallout between environmentalists and the city climaxed last year when Council rezoned more than 660 acres of pristine agricultural land for future industrial uses.
Opponents wanted the city to keep those acres as farmland and instead infill open city parcels with industrial development.
“That’s when we decided we needed to stick together and be watchdogs,” Rogers said.
Rogers said there are roughly a dozen highly active members in S.O.S. Gilroy and the group has not named a board of directors or filed for nonprofit status. Some higher profile members include former Gilroy Planning Commission member and retired ag engineer from Gilroy Foods Norman Watenpaugh, software engineer David Collier and San Jose State geology professor Bob Miller.
Watenpaugh sat on the ag task force that drafted the farmland protection bill.
Rogers said the lawyers fees were paid by group membership. She would not disclose the amount of those fees, but said the process was costly.
“It’s a measure of our desire to protect farmland that we would fund this from our own pockets,” Rogers said.
Meanwhile, landowners of agricultural acres impacted by the farmland proposal digested details of the plan this week.
Lee Wieder represents the group of parcel owners belonging to the 660 acres. Under a farmland preservation policy, the city could make developers pay a fee – at a roughly $5,000-per-acre rate – that would be used to fund open space easements within a 15,000-acre farmland zone east of Gilroy’s 20-year boundary.
Open space easements are, in theory, a sort of win-win proposition for environmentalists and landowners. Agencies can buy and open space easement for less than full market value from willing sellers. In exchange, the seller keeps ownership of the land – as well as his or her farming rights – but restrictions are place on the deed that prohibit development from ever occurring on that parcel.
Wieder said the city’s effort to formulate an ag preservation policy is understandable and reasonable. In fact, Wieder said the owners of the 660 acres do not have any grievances about the potential for mitigating development impacts through fees.
However, Wieder said another group of Gilroy landowners he represents are miffed over the plan.
Wieder’s group began the development process for a swath of 165 farmland acres on the southeast end of town that will eventually be industrially zoned. The owners filed an application, paid various processing fees and funded an environmental review.
Now, if they move forward with development, they’ll likely pay fees they would not have been forced to pay previously.
“What’s unfair is that the owners were totally unaware of these conditions on the land when they began the process,” Wieder said. “Had they been aware the rules of the game would change, they may not have even started the process.”
If City Council approves the stringent acre-for-acre mitigation plan, Wieder says his group of owners deserve some form of leniency.
Options at this point are not clear, and won’t be until January when a new Council will review the task force’s revised proposal. Acre-for-acre mitigation in some cases may be waived by Council. Also, the $5,000-per-acre open space easement fee could be reduced on a case by case basis.
“Some sort of relief should be given that all the parties agree would be fair,” Wieder said.
