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A key agreement between San Juan Bautista and San Benito County creating the “San Juan Presentation” and giving city officials and residents a say in how, and if, its outskirts are developed, has come to fruition after years of work.
On May 20, the county Board of Supervisors voted unanimously to adopt a memorandum of understanding proposed by the city of San Juan Bautista, which would offer a high degree of input over any proposed developments on nearby county property.
It was the final step in a process to limit growth in the area which began in 2020 when then-city council member Dan DeVries proposed creating an urban growth boundary (UGB) around San Juan.
The memorandum aligns with the adopted UGB and a revised and adopted sphere of influence (SOI) as a tool to be used when considering housing and commercial development.
Planning Commissioner and SOI/UGB member Dan De Vries, SOI/UGB member Chris Martorana and San Benito County Principal Planner Arielle Goodspeed discussed the history of these resolutions with BenitoLink.
“In the early 1990s,” DeVries said, “San Juan did a new General Plan. It contained a UGB, but a revision done in 2015 by Cal Poly students removed it. When I was elected to the City Council in 2016, I suggested creating a committee to put it back into place.”
When the UGB committee was formed, then-city manager Don Reynolds told DeVries that, while a sphere of influence—the probable future boundaries of the city—had been part of the General Plan created by the students, the former city manager, Roger Grimsely, had not taken the necessary step to submit it to the Local Agency Formation Commission.
“That meant the SOI reverted to the one done in the ’90s,” DeVries said. “That one was a big huge rectangle on a map. It didn’t follow parcel lines. It didn’t even follow streets. It made no sense.”
Reynolds and DeVries proposed expanding the committee’s work to include drafting a new SOI that would more accurately reflect the will of the community.
Martorana joined as an at-large member, motivated to do so after attending a contentious city meeting which revealed an SOI map proposed by EMC Planning Group and sensing that the developers might be gaining the upper hand.
“At that meeting,” Martorana said, “they had a list of parcels that they were contemplating adding to the city, and I realized it would more than double its size. No resident thinks that we should be doubling the size of the town.”
The meeting broke up when several officials left in frustration during a break, resulting in the loss of a quorum. When a third of the participants left, a small group including DeVries took a marker to EMC’s map and significantly reduced its size.
“EMC was looking at it from the property owners’ perspective as opposed to the needs of the town,” Martorana said. “As that meeting broke up, one guy said the city limits, the urban growth boundary, and the sphere of influence should all be one coterminous line. I remember thinking, ‘Wow.’”
Martorana was chosen as the committee’s chair and moved the discussion toward the city’s natural boundaries, the issues faced with growth, and the community’s goals, wants and needs.
“We didn’t do it in a vacuum,” Martorana said. “We also looked at other municipalities. The mechanics of it were sort of inspired by what Sonoma had done before us.”
The city of Sonoma adopted its urban growth boundaries in 2020 through Measure S with a 64% “yes” vote. It was extended in 2020 through Measure W, which received a 79% “yes” vote.
Adopting the concept of coterminous boundaries, the new San Juan SOI and UGB proposals were passed on Nov. 14 by a unanimous vote of the City Council. With growth restricted to the city limits, according to DeVries, there was one unanswered question: what happens on the other side of the line?
“We can’t do a whole lot jurisdictionally,” DeVries said. “If the idea is that San Juan Bautista wants to have a say, wants their position to be known, as to what happens, how do we accomplish that?”
The solution was to create a “planning area” around the city, where any proposed development would have to be presented to the San Juan City Council for consideration. A city resolution to either support or oppose the project would then be considered in any final decision made by the county.
“At the end of the day,” DeVries said, “it’s the county’s land. They get to decide what actually happens, so we’re saying, ‘This is the area we’re concerned with. Now, how do we manage this interaction?’ I would say, generally, the county was very supportive.”
The committee worked closely with Goodspeed early in the process to identify any potential red flags in its proposal. Goodspeed said her initial reaction was that the city might not really want to get that deeply involved in the county’s process. Her second reaction was that the county was already notifying the city of possible projects.
“I think our staff has found it really important to collaborate with our neighboring jurisdictions,” she said. “Anytime any application was around that boundary, we were sending it to the city. So we were already doing it in an unofficial capacity.”
Martorana said that when this was presented to Reynolds, because the city had already been notified of projects, his response was, “What do we need this for?”
“We responded, that’s great now, but that hasn’t always been the case,” Martorana said. “And we need to make it clear, so that everybody understands what the expectations are.”
With Goodspeed’s help, the proposal was pared back from “47 steps or something” to what was described as a “very clean and clear process,” simplified to ensure projects could be considered within the legal timeframe.
“When you start negotiating,” she said, “you want everything under the sun. But we had to review what state law says about these types of things, and what we can do under that umbrella.”
Goodspeed said that she thinks this will be a valuable tool because it allows public input early in the process and requires the two jurisdictions to meet quarterly, which will enhance collaboration.
For DeVries, who said the passage of this agreement was the most important project he had ever worked on for the city, the bottom line was that developers would know what San Juan’s expectations would be from the beginning. He predicted that the phrase, “the San Juan presentation,” would be heard over and over again in the future.
“If that presentation is the first thing up in the process,” he said, “and it’s struck a nerve in this community, our little council chamber is going to be packed. For something that’s a lightning rod, everyone’s going to show up.”
Related articles
March 22, 2020: SJB Planning Commission discusses urban growth boundary
Feb. 14, 2022: San Juan Bautista weighing growth parameters
May 12, 2022: San Juan Bautista holds five public meetings to discuss growth
June 21, 2022: Initial SJB sphere of influence maps appear to minimize public input in favor of housing
Aug. 5, 2022: San Juan Bautista planners take up controversial issues
July 28, 2023: San Juan Bautista committee adopts growth boundaries
Dec. 11, 2023: San Juan Bautista official placed on administrative leave
June 4, 2024: San Juan Bautista asks for input into planned developments outside city limits
July 19, 2024: San Juan Bautista City Council to revisit memorandum on growth
Aug. 22, 2024: San Juan Bautista’s urban growth committee survives challenge
Nov. 1, 2024: San Juan Bautista growth committee passes final draft agreement with county
Dec. 5, 2024: San Juan Bautista City Council sends growth measure to supervisors
April 9, 2025: Draft of understanding between San Juan Bautista and county forwarded for approval
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