From The Monterey County Herald
December 13, 2010
Guest commentary by

Christine Williams, CVA President
Amy White, Director of LandWatch
Gillian Taylor, Director of The Open Monterey Project

General Plan Deeply Flawed, Misleading

The general plan is the county's land-use constitution. On Oct. 26, the Board of Supervisors adopted the newest version, replacing the 1982 plan. In November, LandWatch, The Open Monterey Project and the Carmel Valley Association, among others, filed lawsuits over it.

Why? Because it is deeply flawed and based on misleading information. The board ignored the extent of harmful impacts. If the plan is left as is, the county would grow without viable plans to accommodate that growth. Our roads will become more congested, our water supply will continue to decline, and our impaired waterways will get more polluted.

Our three groups participated in the review of this general plan, as did other not-for-profit organizations. Despite our dedicated efforts, our voices were not heard on key issues.

There are substantive and procedural issues that the three lawsuits seek to address. Five are of serious concern to our members and the public in general: Traffic congestion, destructive development on steep slopes, water shortages, preferential treatment of "winery corridors" and the last-minute introduction of important and questionable information about the issues immediately before the plan was approved, eliminating reasonable public review.

Cumulative impacts

In the environmental review of the new plan, the county counted traffic on Carmel Valley Road using a new measuring scheme. Under this new method, the more cars on the road, each car is assigned less impact. The measurements are used to determine the traffic congestion level, which triggers policy decisions.

By reducing the measured impact of traffic, the county will allow a dramatic increase in traffic congestion before action is required. This could be applied to the rest of the county. The county ignored the cumulative impacts during its environmental review.

Development on steep slopes

In the past, the county limited development and cultivation of crops on slopes of more than 25 percent. According to GIS mapping submitted by The Open Monterey Project, the new general plan opens up to 500,000 acres of steep hillsides to new cultivation and development. This will increase water use, threaten wildlife habitat and increase soil erosion. The county seriously underestimated the countywide impacts. Our groups want to keep the existing prohibitions against this kind of destructive development.

The county doesn't want to require new development to prove it has a sustainable water supply. The county did not define "long-term sustainable water supply" because it was too controversial. All major water sources in the county are overdrafted because our elected decision-makers have not made the tough decisions in the past. The county is not protecting the public or the public's water supply.

The county claimed that, despite more slope development and all the growth planned in the Salinas Valley water use will decrease. The county wants us to believe that less water will be used 20 years from now than is currently being used, but offers no proof.

The winery corridor

The new plan gives special treatment to the Salinas Valley wine industry by saying many new wineries, tasting rooms and other development along three proposed "winery corridors" do not need environmental review. The winery corridor allows 50 new wineries, 10 new tasting rooms, eight hotels, three restaurants and five delicatessens. Forty "artisan" wineries would not require further environmental review. The county eliminated requirements for further environmental review when artisan wineries grow into "full-scale" wineries.

Every other industry and residence has to follow the rules. To approve the special treatment, the county significantly underestimated impacts of the new wine-related development.

Long after the public comment period was closed for the environmental review of the general plan, the county issued new and technical information that the public was not given adequate time to review.

As one example, days before the plan was adopted, county staff released a document that said agricultural demand for water would be 17,000 acre-feet (almost 5.5 billion gallons) more than the county's original estimate. The county claimed urban water demand would somehow decrease by the same amount, but offered no justification. It is unlikely that urban demand will decrease, given the more than 10,000 homes approved and not yet built, 10,000 more homes proposed, and the city of Gonzales' efforts to grow by 28,000 people with 2,000 acres of new urban growth.

What are we trying to achieve? Our members are united by a desire to see the county grow in a way that makes sense for the environment, our residents and the economy. Our members have no personal financial interest in the outcome of the litigation. If no lawsuit were filed, the issues outlined above would never be addressed.