This is the first in a series of articles I intend to write on the issue of current and future development impacting the residents of Hollister and the local area. My philosophy is that I am for good development and against bad development and there is a lot more to development than mere numbers.
The big debate at the Aug. 28 Hollister City Council meeting was whether or not the city should take a timeout on new residential development. The outline of the plan would exempt certain categories that could include multi-unit developments, affordable housing, small developments and senior restricted housing and put a time-certain on the resumption of the development process.
My position on the development question is that no one can define the right size for Hollister, there is no such thing; a population of 50,000 could be too small while 35,000 could be too large. The right size depends on a lot of factors including the available infrastructure and the look and feel the residents want for their city. Since we already have so many projects in the queue, about 2,000 vested new housing units over which we have little future influence and hundreds more close-in vested county units, we can afford to take a little breather while we adjust the process; the well is not going to run dry.Â
The principle of vesting is critical to the results. At certain points in the development process, the city makes decisions that the developer can use as the basis for determining value, spending money or using assets. If those decisions are later changed, the developer has a legal right to recoup the part of their investment based on the vested decisions. Without any additional controls those vested decisions are locked in forever.
I’m also unsure that the look, feel and infrastructure issues were properly evaluated in all cases for developments previously vested, some more than two decades ago.
For vested city or county units, even those unbuilt, we have almost no workable recourse. The cost to unwind the vesting simply can’t be covered. They will be built under the original, approved, arrangements. My concern is that if we make any more vesting decisions on large residential developments – those with the greatest impacts – before we implement the necessary reforms to get what we want and need we will be stuck again in the future. That detailed discussion is too long and complex for this article, I will cover it in future segments.
To do the improvements we need a length-certain timeout ban on vesting steps for new, unrestricted, residential developments during the timeout period. If applications are not a vesting step we should take applications and the same goes for other non-vested steps, but applicants should be required to acknowledge in writing that they are receiving no vesting rights from during the timeout period; let’s stay out of court.Â
During a length-certain timeout we need to adopt and implement procedures that allow us to control the project designs, evaluate the impacts of the proposals on the infrastructure and the look and feel of the city and procedures to take some of the worst peaks and valleys out of the development rates. Additionally, we must get an agreement with San Benito County to apply our standards to future close-in county developments that, for all intents and purposes, are part of the city.
We have to take a pit-stop to change the tires for better results; that’s not the same as leaving the race.