The county''s largest city wrestles with drawing lines on development.

Next week, the 853-home Mountain Valley residential subdivision on 200 acres of prime agricultural land at Williams and Alisal Roads begins its second round of review.

On Dec. 10, Salinas'' Traffic & Transportation Commission will hold a hearing on an additional general plan amendment required for a change in the original street pattern for the project, which includes a 21-acre community park, a new elementary school site and expansion of the existing Bardin Elementary School. A new shopping center has already been started at Bardin and Williams roads and includes a day-care center for 100 children of low-income families. Plans call for development in six phases over six years. The project will then go back to the Planning Commission on Jan. 6 and to the City Council on Jan. 19.

Geographically, the Mountain Valley site is contiguous with--but outside--Salinas'' southeastern limits and requires annexation to the city, a general plan amendment to change the land use from the county''s agricultural designation to the city''s predominantly medium-density residential designation, pre-zoning, and approval of a Precise Plan for the project. An environmental impact report (EIR) on the project completed earlier this year spelled out numerous issues and impacts, some caused by the project and some by the cumulative effects of this project together with others--including impacts on agricultural lands, traffic, noise and air quality.

Bill Shaw of Shaw Development, which represents the property owners, Sconberg Partnership, contends that the project is consistent with the Salinas general plan, which calls for urban growth to the east and north. "It''s been in the city''s sphere of influence for annexation for the last 20 years," he says.

But that so-called sphere of influence, its specter of urban growth, and what that growth portends for Salinas'' future is prompting new questions about how and where development in Salinas is going and how it will be supported.

"It''s an issue of concern to residents in District 6, where most of the growth is going," says Salinas Councilmember Jyl Lutes, who was elected last month to represent the city''s burgeoning northeast area that includes the Harden Ranch and Creekbridge subdivisions.

"I don''t want unrestrained growth," says Lutes. "I want environmentally smart growth. We have to look at all the impacts before we approve anything."

In the last 10 years, city officials have approved three major subdivisions--Creekbridge, Harden Ranch and Williams Ranch--which together could amount to a maximum of 7,349 units, although the city estimates that only about 3,050 have been built to date.

The Creekbridge development agreement allows discretion to the developers--Thrust IV of Mountain View and Arcadia Homes of San Jose--to build fewer than the 3,045 maximum approved units. And, to date, about 2,000 units remain unbuilt.

Of the other major developments, Harden Ranch was approved for 2,281 units. Of Harden''s two developers Kaufman & Broad completed its construction, while Harrod Homes still has 737 single-family and 296 multi-family units yet to be built.

Both developers of the 2,023-unit Williams Ranch project--Award Homes of Santa Clara and Standard Pacific of Los Altos--have yet to build 750 single family homes and 415 multi-family units, for a total of 1,165 yet-to-be-built units.

That means there are as many as 4,200 housing units still to be built under existing plans already approved by the city. And that doesn''t include small developments that could be built in other residential areas around Salinas.

According to Salinas Community Development Director Charmaine Geiger, the Mountain Valley project is the only significant, large development proposal in the approval pipeline. The October staff report to the City Council recommends approval of the project, and if that recommendation is adopted, a total of 5,053 housing units could still be built in large-scale subdivisions in Salinas.

The Salinas Community Development Department puts the city''s annual growth rate at an average of 2.25 percent. According to official state estimates published by the California Department of Finance, Salinas has grown almost 18 percent since the 1990 census, about twice Monterey County''s rate of growth.

That rate hasn''t gone unnoticed by some of the newest members of the Salinas City Council, who, while generally supporting the role the city plays in providing affordable housing, say they''ll want to scrutinize the affect of that growth on the city''s infrastructure.

Lutes, who once sat on the Alisal Union School District Board and worked closely with the developers of Creekbridge to broker a deal on the development of a new school, says traffic, water and sewer and educational facilities are some of the issues she wants to see scrutinized before approving additional growth in the city.

"We need to look at creative growth before we arbitrarily expand in the northeast corridor," she says. "We need to look at in-fill areas. We need to look at how to increase residential units in downtown areas and Abbott Street. We need to protect agricultural areas."

Her concerns are shared by the council''s other newly elected member, Janet Barnes, who represents the older, slower-growth District 3 in South Salinas. Barnes says street maintenance, sidewalks, public safety and redevelopment are on her short list of needs to be met before approving new growth. "There are so many issues to look at," says Barnes. "We need to see what drives us to continue to build.

"We have to be wise," says Barnes, who nevertheless eschews ''no growth'' labels. "Growth has to be controlled."

But other voices in the community say they''re worried that growth issues are being decided by city leaders more concerned about beefing up property tax and sales tax revenues.

"The leadership needs to focus on being responsible in development," says Jeff Denham, who ran against Lutes in District 6. "Often, they look at revenue from the short term, not long-term basis."

But Robert Russell, Salinas'' senior engineer, says the needs and funding are looked at from a long-term perspective. For new developments, he explains, the costs of growth impacts are placed squarely on developers. Under existing ordinances, fees are also imposed for traffic and sewer impacts generated by the new development, such as widening existing roads to accommodate increased traffic or up-sizing existing sewer lines because of increased demand. The city''s current traffic impact fee is $1,300 per home; the sewer impact fee is $290 per bedroom.

According to Russell, the city is also in the midst of working with a consultant, to review a citywide sanitary sewer study. Russell says projects already approved don''t appear to be taxing city sewers, although the Mountain Valley project does have one outstanding sewer issue. "If there is not sufficient capacity (in the Alisal sewer main line), staff will require the developer to up-front the money or put in the improvements," like a ponding basin, he explains. "If there is capacity, there is no problem, but the developer will still pay impact fees."

But impact fees charged off to developers cannot be used for maintenance--and there''s the rub for the city. Once a developer is charged with paying the costs for providing improvements, maintenance essentially becomes the city''s problems. And those are problems that can definitely mount up. John Fair, Salinas'' public works director, says his "best assessment" of unmet infrastructure maintenance totals around $220 million. That includes streets, sewers, curbs, gutters, sidewalks and drainage.

"Our street condition model tells us that for our most traveled streets, the annual expenditure should be $2 to 3 million," says Fair.

Currently, he says the city annually allocates about $500,000 for street maintenance and about $250,000 for curbs, gutters and sidewalks. Funding comes primarily from gas tax monies, while money for sewer maintenance comes from a surcharge paid by Salinas residents to the Monterey Regional Water Pollution Control Agency. And what''s already allocated pretty much amounts to all the city can currently pay for infrastructure maintenance.

"The council has no options," says Fair. "What can they do? Any other funding source has to go to the voters"--and face the impossible task of receiving a two-thirds approval at the polls. As evidence, Fair points to the recent failure of Measure N, which on Nov. 3 sought to provide money for road improvements. That measure would have provided Salinas with about $4 million for street maintenance.

"The council can''t control its own funding sources," he says. "It can''t raise taxes. It can only curtail services."

One option worth considering may be a total overhaul of the city general plan that acts as a blueprint for development within Salinas and that was last adopted in 1988.

Geiger says the city is looking to "put together a (work) plan for a general plan update sometime in the first quarter of the year," although she contends there is not a significant amount of vacant land in the city and that any future growth for Salinas would involve annexation to the northeast. That land is currently designated urban reserve in the city''s general plan, although in reality, much of it remains in agricultural use.

"There needs to be recognition that loss of farm land in the Salinas Valley is a serious problem," says Donna Kaufman, coordinator of the nonprofit LandWatch Monterey County, an organization dedicated to prudent planning. "Of the 7,500 approved yet-unconstructed (housing) units in Monterey County, 68 percent are on productive farmland. Piecemeal decisions have significant loss." LandWatch has also recommended denial of the Mountain Valley project--a recommendation that is consistent with its opposition to any annexation of agricultural land for purposes of urban land development.

To set the stage for the general plan update, the Salinas Community Development Department is compiling an "existing conditions" report that describes the city as it looks today, including services such as fire stations, parks and the like. "It is not a policy document," says Geiger, "but an important piece of information."

If approved by the council, Geiger expects the general plan update process to take about two years. That, she says, represents "an ambitious time frame" with "a lot of opportunities for public input."

LandWatch Monterey County has requested that Salinas consider a moratorium on general plan amendments during the course of the general plan update--a request Kaufman says has also been made of Monterey County and the city of Marina, which are also undertaking general plan updates. Kaufman says so far none of the agencies has responded to the moratorium requests.

Another attempt to diminish piecemeal approaches to development is the so-called "City-Centered Growth Task Force," comprised of the mayors of Salinas, Gonzales, Soledad, Greenfield and King City and two members of the County Board of Supervisors. The task force has been meeting for several years to develop cooperative ways of dealing with land use in the Salinas Valley, reports Jim Colangelo executive director of the Local Agency Formation Commission (LAFCO), the inter-city agency charged with approving municipal annexation.

The task force has agreed on four principles, according to Colangelo, and directed staff to come up with an implementation action plan. The first principle recognizes that "logical, planned growth patterns" require the use of agricultural land. That''s an approach that will run headlong into the concerns expressed by groups like Landwatch, which advocates looking first within city boundaries and where they already provide urban services, says Kaufman.

Where to grow is the question that will continue to dog Salinas officials as they consider how to update their general plan in coming years and whether to approve Mountain Valley in the months to come. "People in East Salinas want this project," says Bill Shaw.

"It offers a lot of benefits for the whole community," he says, citing that few low-income homes have been built in Salinas in the last 10 years. "It''s very important that East Salinas changes to a better community to live in. This project will help." cw