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Home September 2005 |
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Greenbelt Newswire
In this edition
Volunteer of the Month: Joanna Malaczynski Joanna Malaczynski has had an extremely productive summer as Greenbelt Alliance's South Bay intern. She focused first on San Mateo County, helping us stay abreast of news about San Bruno Mountain and the Half Moon Bay Local Coastal Program. Joanna also helped identify San Mateo County's threatened and protected landscapes to help update our map of Bay Area lands at risk of development. Before long, her role expanded to include work in Santa Clara County, particularly researching housing, farming, and other issues related to Coyote Valley's development. Joanna's background as an attorney and her interest in the issues are very clear in the probing questions she asks—and the thorough answers she gets! Her information-packed weekly reports, contacts with community leaders, and quick understanding of the issues have all been tremendous assets to the South Bay field office. Volunteers like Joanna are the foundations of Greenbelt Alliance's success. Thank you, Joanna!
Action Alert: Volunteer an Evening for the Greenbelt! The efforts to save East Bay open space are heating up! We're working to stop developer-sponsored measures in Antioch, Brentwood, Pittsburg, and Livermore that would draw expanded urban limit lines and open up currently protected land to sprawl development. Join us to help defeat these sprawl measures—and stop deep-pocketed developers from thinking they can fool voters into allowing uncontrolled growth. Come to our phone banks in San Francisco, Walnut Creek, and Pittsburg, where you can meet fellow volunteers, grab some pizza, and get the word out to voters! Phone banks are from 5:30-9:30 pm:
For more information on the phone banks, click here. For more information on the issues, see our pages on Antioch, Pittsburg/Brentwood, and Livermore.
Alert: New Threat to Sargent Ranch Sargent Ranch is a large expanse of farmland and wildlife habitat southwest of Gilroy at the base of the Santa Cruz Mountains. Over the years, the 6,500-acre ranch has been threatened with development again and again, but local activists, with the help of Greenbelt Alliance and others, have stopped each proposal. Unfortunately, the land isn't safe yet. Wayne Pierce, the developer who now owns the land, has partnered with a splinter group of a local Indian tribe, the Amah Mutsun, to open the land to development. If the splinter group of Amah Mutsun is federally recognized as a separate tribe, it would gain 3,500 acres of Sargent Ranch as tribal land, meaning local and state land use rules would not be enforceable there; the tribe would keep 500 acres and Wayne Pierce would develop the rest. Congressman Mike Honda (D-San Jose) recently introduced legislation to fast-track the federal recognition process of the Amah Mutsun group. Congressman Honda says his intentions are unrelated to Sargent Ranch—but his efforts could open these remote lands to unchecked development. Take Action! Email Congressman Honda and urge him to ensure that his efforts don't lead to the development of Sargent Ranch. Tell him that whoever controls the land should abide by state and local zoning and land use rules. Click here for more information on Sargent Ranch.
Alert: Unfair Payment Initiative Could Cost Napa Taxpayers Millions The Unfair Payment initiative will not be on the ballot this November; instead, it will go before Napa County voters in June 2006. The Unfair Payment initiative would require the county to either pay land owners who claim new land use laws reduce their property values, or exempt those land owners from the laws. The delay is due to a decision by the Napa County Board of Supervisors to get an independent report on the initiative's potential fiscal impacts before sending it to the ballot. The report, released this month, found that the costs to Napa County could be enormous. Up to 25 actions by the Board of Supervisors could trigger substantive claims each year. If the claims were not upheld, the legal and administrative costs would still be between $1 and $3 million per year. If the claims were upheld, the costs could be up to $50 million or more. That's more than two-thirds of the County's entire discretionary budget, which funds public safety and other critical public services. The legal analysis of the initiative also said it may be in conflict with state law and so could be invalid. Greenbelt Alliance will continue to support efforts by local farmers, environmentalists, vintners, businesspeople, and others who are working to defeat the costly Unfair Payment initiative next June.
Update: Coyote Valley: Getting it Wrong? The plans for developing Coyote Valley, the last large tract of land inside San Jose's city limits, are going a little haywire. Coyote Valley's development was originally conceived as a significant departure from San Jose's sprawling history: a national model of smart growth, with jobs, shops, and homes near good transit. Now the City seems to be forgetting all its plans in a rush to capitalize on the region's high housing prices. Originally, development required a certain number of jobs in Coyote Valley before housing could be built, to ensure the valley would not become a sprawling bedroom community imposing high infrastructure costs on San Jose's residents. Then the Coyote Valley Task Force received a report saying that housing would pay for itself. Though the City recently announced that the report appears to be based on flawed assumptions, Greenbelt Alliance is concerned that city leaders are losing sight of the original vision in their scramble to develop the valley. Ultimately, no matter what order jobs and housing go into the valley, development should be based on a smart growth plan that creates a vibrant, walkable new community—not another traffic-choked sprawl development. Take Action! Write a letter to the editor of the San Jose Mercury News (letters@mercurynews.com) to say San Jose's leaders should slow down and get Coyote Valley's development right. Click here for more information on Coyote Valley.
Sun Oct 2: Point Reyes Vistas Click here
for recent press coverage of Greenbelt Alliance's work Become a Member or Renew Your Membership Support our work to protect the Bay Area's open space and make our cities better places to live. Click here to join or renew, or click here to join our Greenbelt Guardian monthly donor club. Questions? Contact Melissa Wright at 415-543-6771 or mwright@greenbelt.org.
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