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Changes to San Benito County’s General Plan, which serves as the blueprint for growth, divided the Board of Supervisors.
The San Benito County Board of Supervisors proposed changes to the county’s 2035 General Plan’s agriculture policy, as well as its land use element, housing element and circulation element during its Jan. 16 meeting.
In three rounds of voting, with Supervisors Dom Zanger and Kollin Kosmicki opposed to delaying to initiate the amendment process, the board moved to have an advisory committee review eight proposed changes, and have two other proposed changes reviewed by the County Planning Commission. Another change would be reviewed by the governance committee managed by the San Benito Water District.
Proposed amendments to the agriculture policy:
- Increase the ratio of farmland and non-agricultural land uses from 1:1 to 2:1, 3:1 or 5:1
- Change language in policy from “shall challenge” to “shall require” applicants to preserve up to an equal number of prime farmland acres
- Eliminate wording to indicate farmland should have been used for irrigated agricultural production four years prior.
- Include language and illustrations as examples for the Urban Residential Buffer Requirements
- Change the minimum agricultural designated lot sizes from 5 acres to 40 acres closer to the cities
- Increase the minimum rangeland lot size for open space to 320 acres
- Add an agricultural element to the General Plan
Proposed amendments to the land use element:
- Change the land use designation from residential mixed to agriculture east of Fairview Road and South of Ridgemark
- Increase maximum residential density from eight units per acre to 20 units per acre east of Fairview Road and South of Ridgemark
- Increase commercial land use
- Designate an area north of Buena Vista Road as public and quasi-public land use to allow the San Benito High School District to expand its second high school
Proposed amendments to the housing element:
- Add a growth management ordinance to manage future growth in the county
Proposed amendments to the circulation element:
- Reconsider roadway classification throughout the county
- Address and review the Highway 25 expansion project from Hollister to Santa Clara County
- Review the Santa Teresa Boulevard extension project
If approved, the Santa Teresa Boulevard extension could extend to Hwy 152 in Santa Clara County through San Benito County and possibly result in agricultural land loss and opportunities for economic development, a county staff report states.
The 15 amendments would cost the county over $1 million, including the preparation of an environmental impact report, Director of Planning, Building and Code Enforcement Abraham Prado told the meeting.
The Sustainable Agricultural Land Conservation program (SALC), awarded the county a $500,000 grant to cover the cost of changing the first eight proposed amendments. Though the county is required to match 10% of those funds, which the board approved in March 2023, county Principal Planner Arielle Goodspeed said
Zanger and Kosmicki were ready to approve the changes, but Supervisors Angela Curro, Mindy Sotelo and Bea Gonzales were conflicted about the cost of a possible environmental impact report.
Zanger said it wouldn’t be wise to “backtrack” after the entire board agreed with the County Planning Commission to make the proposed changes after a joint meeting in June 2023. He reminded the board that the proposed changes were meant to “initiate a conversation.”
Kosmicki agreed with Zanger and added that supervisors should not “backtrack when pressured” by residents who “have a financial interest involved.”
“If we pull back now, let’s be honest, none of this is going to happen,” Kosmicki said. “All the steps, all the work that we’ve done and the planning commissioners is going to be lost. I can guarantee it. If we pull back and say we’re not going to talk about the 40 acres, we’re not going to talk about the 320 acres.”
Sotelo and Gonzales said they disagreed.
Curro said she was supportive of the changes covered under the SALC grant, but wanted to be strategic about making amendments to the General Plan.
“I think we have to look at property rights. I think that we have to be talking to the stakeholders,” Sotelo said. “I don’t think that there have been a ton of conversations around it.”
Sotelo said she wanted to see the board pull back and talk to stakeholders before deciding to amend the General Plan.
There were nine public comments. One speaker supported the changes while seven were against the changes, noting concerns about property rights and values. One speaker, San Benito High School District Superintendent Shawn Tennenbaum, spoke about the Buena Vista Road element, which he said is one potential location for the district’s second high school.
Jessica Wohlander, an environmental associate with Green Foothills, a nonprofit focused on protecting open space, supported the amendments to protect farmland.
“We strongly agree with the recommendations to amend the General Plan to protect agricultural land and discourage residential sprawl,” Wohlander said.
Devon Pack said his family has been farming in Hollister since 1912 and is concerned that other farmers have not been brought to the table regarding increasing density.
The proposed amendments have the “potential to substantially interfere with the business operations of actual growers and actual ranchers here in San Benito County,” Pack said.
He added there are four main factors to farming: labor, logistics, water and finance; and that if the board approved the amendments, changing the density in some parts of the county, that would significantly lower prime farmland and affect farmers applying for loans.
He said the proposed changes require more consultation with the San Benito Farm Bureau and the San Benito Cattlemen’s Association and banks that take part in agriculture business.
“We do not want to create a situation where the agricultural element becomes a straitjacket that restricts farmers and growers from being able to secure financing to grow these fields and put these fields under cultivation,” Pack said.
Board elects new chair and vice chair
Curro was unanimously appointed chair of the board at the Jan. 16 meeting. Former chair Sotelo was subsequently elected in a 3-2 vote as vice chair with Supervisors Kosmicki and Zanger opposed.
“I am very honored to be nominated as the chair and I take it very seriously,” Curro said during the board’s announcements.
“I am working hard to have a vision that is communication, collaboration, and truly strategic planning as a team and listening to each other and hearing our constituents’ disagreements and coming up with compromises that will ensure that we are moving forward to solve some of these very difficult challenges in our community,” she added.
Sotelo received a plaque recognizing her time as board chair in 2023.
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