Revised General Plan Update makes more room for housing.

Photo by Randy Tunnell: Jim Colangelo, who is spearheading the county''s move to update its General Plan, says the process may be complete by year''s end.

County Supervisors got their first look at the newest version of the draft General Plan on Tuesday, April 29.

The latest document, rewritten at the direction of the Supes over the past six months, includes widened highways, new incentives for affordable housing, and right-to-farm language. It earmarks about 86,000 acres for future residential development.

This latest version of the 20-year growth plan falls "more to the middle" of the political spectrum than the first draft, says Jim Colangelo, the chief assistant county administrative officer who is managing the process.

After the first draft was released in January 2002, conservationists cheered the "smart-growth" approach, while a vocal group of Salinas Valley growers, Peninsula hospitality industry leaders and land-use attorneys charged that planners and environmentalists had hijacked the plan and created a document unfriendly to their concerns.

"Certainly the document has been changed significantly," Colangelo says. "However we feel it does run consistent with the 12 guiding objectives," including recommendations to build affordable housing, protect air, water and farmland, and preserve agriculture.

In February, the Supes directed staff to make several changes to the plan and return with a revised document. That directive resulted in major changes:

• The boundaries of Rancho San Juan--a planned development north of Salinas that would include 4,000 homes, five schools, a hotel and a golf course--were expanded.

• Environmental review policies were un-modified. The initial draft attempted to streamline the process. But because of opposition from South County landowners, the new draft goes back to existing policies.

• Maps of scenic viewsheds and environmentally sensitive areas were removed.

• Priority listings for road improvements were revised.

• Incentives were added to encourage developers to build affordable housing.

• "Agricultural viability" policies were added, including permit exemptions for routine ag activities, an agricultural planning commission, and right-to-farm language.

Additionally, county planners incorporated 12 of 13 "compromise" requests from property owners wanting to rezone their existing land-use designation. Over a period of several months, the Planning Commission and the Board of Supervisors reviewed more than 270 such requests from landowners.

"We''re at a unique point of this process because I''m sure people will continue to comment on what they like and don''t like about the plan, but we''re in the technical phase," Colangelo says. "We''re asking the Board, ''is this what you asked us to do in February.''"

Several parts of the document have yet to be written, he adds, including the Environmental Impact Report, a growth agreement with Salinas Valley cities, a housing element, a capital improvement plan and response to several hundred pages of comments from the California Coastal Commission.

After supervisors review the revised draft, it will be subject to another round of public hearings before the Planning Commission and the Supervisors.

"If everything fell into place, we could have it done by the end of the year," Colangelo says.

The Coalition to Protect Housing, Farmlands, Air & Water--whose members include former Assemblymember Fred Keeley and Julie Packard, executive director of the Monterey Bay Aquarium--have asked the Supes to complete the plan and to stick to its original eco-friendly "Guiding Objectives."

In an earlier interview with the Weekly, Keeley, now executive director of the Planning and Conservation League Foundation, said "there is still a great deal of uncertainly as to what the Board of Supervisors will adopt, and that there are efforts underway on the Board to continue to make changes to the document."

Supervisor Lou Calcagno, however, denied any effort among the Supes to scrap the plan.

"I don''t hear any of that, unless there''s some undertone that I don''t know about," Calcagno says. "I see all this pressure coming from both sides. I see the environmentalists and they''re all nervous, and the other side, as I call them, and they''re nervous and tense. I think, what war are we going to fight? I didn''t know there was one."

The draft General Plan is available at www.co.monterey.ca.us/gpu. Free copies on CD-ROM are also available. For more information call 755-5352.