A new high school in Watsonville's coastal zone won the approval of the California Coastal Commission during the panel's March meeting. The decision came after local government leaders, environmentalists, farmers and Pajaro Valley Unified School District officials agreed to a complex pact that appears to end years of conflict over the proposed school. Opponents had long feared the school was a step toward development of farmland and coastal habitat.
In voting to amend the Watsonville Local Coastal Plan to allow the 2,200-student school on 140 acres, coastal commissioners said they were impressed with the memorandum of understanding. Advocates, including Assemblyman Fred Keeley (D-Santa Cruz), who helped craft the deal, said the pact would protect 6,000 acres of Pajaro Valley farmland.
The agreement gives the community a much-needed high school. In exchange, the City of Watsonville cannot annex additional land west of Highway 1 (with one minor exception), ending the city's longstanding plan to annex a 646-acre plot for housing development. City officials also agreed to introduce a "right to farm" ordinance and regulatory protections for environmentally sensitive areas near the high school site. City and county officials promised not to extend urban services into rural areas.
The school district might have to alter architectural plans to fit the site, which the agreement modified slightly. The school district settled on the site at Harkins Slough and Lee roads in 1995, after a seven-year search.
The Army Corps of Engineers has announced new permit regulations that will force builders to avoid wetlands and riparian areas.
Under rules for Nationwide Permit 26 to take effect in July, developers and public agencies will be able to fill only one-half an acre of wetlands, rivers, or seasonal streams, a reduction from the current three-acre maximum. The Corps will also require that it be notified of activity impacting more than one-tenth of an acre of wetlands and creeks, down from one-third of an acre.
"These changes to the national permit program reflect the administration's, and the Army's, commitment to protecting the nation's wetlands and reducing damages to communities from flooding," said Michael Davis, Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Army for Civil Works.
Only three years ago, the Corps extended its "dredge and fill" regulations to projects involving one-third to three acres of wetlands, down from the previous range of one to ten acres. The Corps issues about 85,000 permits a year under the Clean Water Act.
It is not often that a land-use hearing draws a congressman, an assemblywoman and an out-of-county supervisor. But a late-February hearing on the proposed Ahmanson Ranch development in eastern Ventura County attracted Rep. Brad Sherman (D-Sherman Oaks), Assemblywoman Sheila Kuehl (D-Santa Monica) and Los Angeles County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky — along with about 500 other people.
The politicians and area residents urged the Army Corps of Engineers to require a new environmental impact statement for Ahmanson Ranch. They said a 1992 environmental study for the proposed 3,050-home subdivision was outdated because of the discovery on the site since then of the San Fernando Valley spineflower, which was thought to be extinct, and the California red-legged frog, an endangered species. They also argued that traffic and water concerns have increased since 1992.
The Corps of Engineers has not yet made a decision on what level of review it will require. Washington Mutual, the Ahmanson Ranch developer, needs a Corps' permit to fill tributaries to East Las Virgenes Creek.
Ventura County supervisors approved the project on the Ventura-Los Angeles County border in 1992 despite protests from Los Angeles, which would receive nearly all of the development's traffic. Since then, lawsuits and permitting processes have slowed the project.
The state Board of Forestry has adopted temporary regulations for harvesting timber near waterways while the board continues to work on a permanent package of new rules.
The temporary rules, effective for six months starting July 1, require loggers to leave at least 85% of forest canopy within 75 feet fish-bearing streams, and at least two-thirds of canopy within the next 75 feet. There also are restrictions on cutting trees on the steepest slopes and on winter road building. The rules, which affect private land from the Santa Cruz Mountains to the Oregon border, are intended to aid coho salmon and steelhead, whose numbers have declined dramatically in recent decades. (See CP&DR Environment Watch, December 1999.)
Environmentalists argued that the rules are not strong enough to keep waters clear and cool, as the fish need. Loggers, who protested against proposed tighter limits, gave a mixed reaction to the temporary regulations.
The Antioch City Council rejected a proposal to require real estate agents to tell prospective homebuyers about difficult commutes and crowded schools. The proposed ordinance stemmed from Measure U, a successful 1998 advisory measure targeted at developers of new houses.
The ordinance, defeated on a 3-0 vote in mid-March, would have directed real estate agents to provide a disclosure statement saying that roads are heavily congested during commute hours and that children might have to attend crowded schools on the other side of town. It was unclear whether the disclosure would have applied only to new homes or to resale homes, too.
Residents of Antioch, a fast-growing eastern Contra Costa County city of 81,000, have complained bitterly as traffic on Highway 4 and I-680 has lengthened the commute time to jobs centers about 30 miles west in Walnut Creek and Concord.
A bill that would give landowners direct access to federal courts in local land-use disputes passed the U.S. House of Representatives in mid-March.
The Private Property Rights Implementation Act, HR 2372, would allow landowners to bypass the state court system if a landowner were unsatisfied with the decision of a city or county. As things now stand, developers must first bring "takings" claims in state court before pursuing the matter in federal court. That process can last for several years, and even then federal courts can turn away lawsuits. Rep. Charles Canady (R-Florida), who authored the bill, described the current system as a "Kafkaesque legal maze."
The American Planning Association, the National League of Cities and the Conference of (state) Chief Justices are among the bill's opponents.
The bill, similar to one the house passed in 1997, received a 226-182 vote. President Clinton has vowed to veto the measure. Vice President Al Gore has also denounced the bill.
