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At its Jan. 11 meeting, the San Benito County Board of Supervisors took its first steps in adapting to the changes brought by Measure A, the initiative which reshaped the county’s land use decision-making process. The board unanimously approved modifying the county’s General Plan and determined that developers would pay for Measure A-related elections.
Measure A, which voters passed on Nov. 5, aims to halt commercial growth without voter approval. Now, changing the designation of agricultural, rural or rangeland to commercial zoning, one of the first steps toward building any project, requires that developers seeking to build in the county’s unincorporated area put their project to a countywide vote.
What wasn’t clear until yesterday’s meeting was who would fund those elections. The supervisors agreed that developers should bear the cost.
“I don’t think it’s for us, the taxpayers, to pay for it,” Supervisor Ignacio Velazquez said. “If you’re going to be building here, you’re paying; you need to pay all fees.”
Supervisor Angela Curro agreed that San Benito County residents shouldn’t pay for elections regarding developments,” and speculated on the impact it would have on the county’s future.
“Who would want to do a development here with the cost of an election and the potential ‘no’ vote of the voters?” she said. “Maybe that’s the whole point of Measure A—to deter the developers from wanting to come here. I think Measure A has made it very clear. We are not pro-development in any way and we don’t have the infrastructure, whether it’s roads or wastewater, to have development in the unincorporated area.”
Arielle Goodspeed, the county’s principal planner, said that San Benito County voters would vote on developments requiring rezoning of lands stipulated in Measure A only after a project received approval from the Planning Commission and the Board of Supervisors. That’s because, when considering a development, planners and supervisors usually make changes.
So, if the vote were to be held before a project is discussed in the county’s chambers, “what the people are voting on might change,” Goodspeed said; and if that happens, there would have to be a new vote.
Once approved, the project can be placed on either a special or a general election ballot. Special elections can be held at any time, while general elections follow the state’s schedule. At the meeting, Francisco Diaz, the county’s registrar of voters, said a special election would cost $400,000 to $500,000, while putting projects on a general election ballot would cost $40,000 to $60,000.
“It wouldn’t be any different than the election we just had where, for example, the Hollister High School had two measures,” Diaz said. “If there were multiple proponents, each one would have a different measure letter, a different page or content in the voter guide and ballot.”
Due to its high cost, the board closed the door to Measure A-related special elections funded with public money, but left it open if a developer is willing to pay for such an election.
The board passed an exemption for Measure A-related initiatives that it—or a future board—chooses to fund. “I’m not a proponent of the county covering the cost of the elections,” Supervisor Dom Zanger said. “I think that that wouldn’t exactly be fair to taxpayers. But we could retain the option to do that if we wanted to. So we would decide whether or not we want to pay for the election.”
At the meeting, the supervisors also approved a moratorium on all development applications starting from Dec. 20, 2024. This means that any project submitted after that date will be put on hold until the county finishes updating its General Plan to align with Measure A.
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