By Jessica Ablamsky

New mandates from the Air Resources Board and the Housign and Community Development office, both state agencies, require that local planners find ways to build more housing while lowering greenhouse gas emissions.

Photo by: Nick Lovejoy

Planning officials balance housing needs with emissions requirements

As an end comes to the sewer moratorium in Hollister, city and county planning officials will need to heed mandates from the state's Housing and Community Development office as well as the California Air Resources Board, whose mandates are sometimes contradictory as they plan future growth.

The Department of Housing and Community Development creates housing targets for cities and counties to ensure a steady supply of housing, both market rate and affordable - targets that are often tied to state funding and grants. The California Air Resources Board is charged with bringing California into compliance with a new law to drastically lower greenhouse gas emissions by 80 percent of 1990 levels in the next 40 years.

To reduce residents' carbon footprint, the challenge for local officials is to accommodate projected regional growth without inducing sprawl, local planners agree.

"We seem to sort of have mixed mandates," said Mary Paxton, Hollister's planning manager. "One mandate is to reduce our carbon emissions, and another mandate is to construct housing."

Air Resources Board staff released a draft version of their plan June 26.

Reducing vehicles miles traveled is one of the major considerations in the draft plan, said Stanley Young, spokesperson for the California Air Resources Board.

"Greenhouse gas emissions can be equated with vehicle miles traveled," Young said. "In the future, developments will have to be examined to determine the impact they have in terms of the number of vehicle miles that they could eventually generate."

New development is not necessarily bad.

"It depends on where it is and how it links up with existing transportation facilities," Young said.

Current state guidelines provide little direction for local officials, said Art Henriques, the county planning director.

"The advice from the attorney general's office was, 'Take your best shot at it. We recognize that the guidelines are open,'" Henriques said.

Every five or six years, HCD staff assigns each region a number of houses that it must accommodate over the next period, said Cathy Creswell, HCD's deputy director for housing policy development. Good planning can address both issues, she said.

The local Council of Governments, an agency with representatives from the county and cities, distribute the housing allocation between those cities and counties.

It is not a choice between fighting global warming and building houses. Most carbon emissions come from transportation, Creswell said.

"We don't think that folks are going to be successful in [reducing carbon emissions] unless we're addressing the kind of housing in the places that folks are going to need it," she said. "It is required that they plan to accommodate the growth."

Without a certified housing element in their general plan, a city or county can lose out on state funding and grants.

Due to its restrictive growth ordinance, San Juan Bautista does not have a certified housing element.

New residential development in Hollister has been restricted over the last six years due to a moratorium on new sewer hook ups.

It will be easier for Hollister officials to avoid sprawl than San Benito County officials, Paxton said.

"We're contained," Paxton said.

Sprawl is a concern for some local officials who would like to see more infill development and the type of development that promotes walking around neighborhoods rather than driving. This would be one way to lower emissions.

"Probably about 48 percent of our workforce commutes," Paxton said.

Based on regional housing needs, new housing will continue to outpace job growth, Paxton said.

"It doesn't seem that the Department of Housing and Regional Development factors that into their housing assignment," Paxton said.

Hollister's housing allocation through June 2014 is 3,050 houses, said Lisa Rheinheimer, executive director of San Benito COG. After the moratorium ends, the build-out schedule in Hollister for previously approved development would allow less than 2,000 houses.

"I think our regional housing needs will require that we grow faster than that," Paxton said.

Unincorporated areas were allocated 1,655 houses, Rheinheimer said.

Although San Benito County has a 1 percent growth cap that limits new development to 60 houses per year, the largest projects in the county would total nearly 8,000 houses over their build-out.

A proposal by Pat Loe, a San Benito County's supervisor, would have postponed new developments in the county until the county's general plan is finished in 2 ½ years. Board members voted 4-1 against Loe's proposal June 24.

Some of the large proposals will make the county's general plan outdated before it is even adopted, Loe said.

The public does not want leapfrog development, based on comments from the county's general plan, Loe said.

"My perspective on leapfrog development is it is certainly appropriate to consider new towns in good locations," said Ray Becker, spokesperson for DMB, the developer of a proposed 6,800- unit project named El Rancho San Benito.

By incorporating 1.1 million square feet of light industrial space, El Rancho San Benito takes an integrated approach to job growth, Becker said. Jobs will be located in close proximity to housing, which reduces carbon emissions.

Santana Ranch, another development proposed on the edge of town along Fairview Road, would expand Hollister's borders without annexation into Hollister. It is a 1,092-unit development with a variety of housing types and retail spaces.

Santana Ranch and El Rancho San Benito would not contribute to sprawl, Henriques said. The concept for both projects is smart and walkable, Henriques said.

In addition Santana Ranch developers plan to incorporate some green building features. Housing and landscape design will be conducive to passive solar heating and cooling, said Jim Weaver, a developer for the project.

"We're not leapfrogging out a major distance," Weaver said. "I think, just its location alone, is consistent with both the Air Resources Board, the attorney general and the governor's ideology."

Although there is room in the county for infill development, it makes sense to locate high-density near Hollister, Henriques said.

Locating growth near Hollister's borders represents a change in county growth patterns, Paxton said. What changed is Hollister's wastewater treatment plant, Paxton said. The new treatment plan will enable Hollister officials to accept new sewer hookups from city and county residents.

"I think for quite some time there was the understanding that development in the City of Hollister sphere of influence was severely discouraged," Paxton said.

Jessica Ablamsky Staff writer jablamsky@pinnaclenews.com