MORGAN HILL
– Things are heating up at Urban Limit Line Committee meetings
as the 17-member group prepares to draw a line around the city,
affecting development potential for properties on both sides of the
boundary.
MORGAN HILL – Things are heating up at Urban Limit Line Committee meetings as the 17-member group prepares to draw a line around the city, affecting development potential for properties on both sides of the boundary.
Monday’s meeting in a large City Hall conference room was packed with about 20 onlookers.
The committee’s charge is to establish a greenbelt around the city to define the urban growth limit and help city staff plan development for as much as 50 years. Property outside the line would be prohibited from being developed. The committee has not extensively discussed how landowners might be compensated if their land cannot be developed based on the limit-line boundaries.
“We have things here other cities wish they had,” said committee member Mark Grzan. “If we don’t plan now, we will lose this and become just another Mountain View or Sunnyvale. Once it’s gone, it’s gone.”
The committee’s philosophical dividing line is between property owner/developer advocates and the environmentalist/open space proponents. The committee makeup reflects both groups but is more heavily weighted toward property owners.
The meeting Monday was more contentious than usual, said Mayor Dennis Kennedy, chairman of the committee. He is less than optimistic that a consensus could be reached that will satisfy everyone.
“I’m hopeful, but I don’t think so,” Kennedy said. “Property owners are so adamant in their positions that it’s going to be tough to come up with a consensus.”
The committee was chosen by the council, Kennedy said, to represent several categories: agriculture, vintners, developers, environmentalists and citizen representative.
Monday’s meeting dealt with the city’s southeastern limit. Committee members debated if the boundary should line up with Hill Road, be drawn along Foothill Avenue, or be moved up to the 20 percent slope line. The committee decided the further east the better.
Each boundary movement adds or displaces someone’s property from future development and adds or subtracts it from the greenbelt.
The committee is also deciding where to select additional acres for another industrial park, away from the northern part of the city where three other industrial areas are located.
Attorney Bruce Tichinin, who is on the committee and normally is found in the environmental camp, has been hired by the DiVittorio family – Jim DiVittorio is on the committee – to protect their interests in land they own south of Tennant Avenue and near U.S. 101.
“The DiVittorios want to have their parcel not be placed in the open space area,” Tichinin said Thursday. “That land is suitable for industrial use because it is close to the freeway with easy access.
“It appears that, on the order of 340 acres of high quality industrial park land is needed for industrial use between now and 2020 if Morgan Hill continues it’s historical industrial land absorption rate of 20 acres a year. There are apparently 100 acres left in Morgan Hill Ranch, the only remaining source of really high quality industrial land. That means another 240 acres are required out to 2020.”
Tichinin said he had not included the unoccupied buildings in the existing industrial parks in his calculations.
The committee, which has already met eight times, will meet again from 6 to 10 p.m. Oct. 13, and again on Oct. 27, in The Villas behind City Hall.
