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Conservation Action Network, San Diego Chapter, Sierra Club

Email Alert #28
January 27, 2003

The San Diego County General Plan 2020 (GP 2020) will be the recipe for growth/development in rural San Diego for the next 20 to 30 years. The old General Plan is a blueprint for the destruction of San Diego's world-class countryside. Will the new plan curb urban sprawl, preserve agriculture, local water supplies, wildlife, and retain our scenic beauty?

Your voice is needed now to protect our future and our rural resources for generations to come.

WHAT YOU CAN DO

1. Attend one of the three hearings listed below.  Any meeting you can attend will be fine to share your thoughts.  You only need to fill out a speaker slip and speak for a minute -or less if you like.   Talking points are provided below.

2. If you absolutely cannot attend a meeting, e-mail your support for conservation, reduction of sprawl zoning, and for good planning to the Planning Commission at cheryl.jones@sdcounty.ca.gov. Or mail to:

Commissioner Chairman Woods and San Diego County Planning Commissioners 5201 Ruffin Road San Diego, CA 92123-1666.

3. Volunteer for the Sierra Club's GP2020 campaign. Contact Eric Bowlby at 619-284-9399 or by email at savewetlands@compuserve.com.

Here are some TALKING POINTS to choose from:

• IN GENERAL: Very low densities outside of towns and villages are needed to protect rural open space, agricultural areas, wildlife, scenic views, quiet solitude, dark skies, environmentally sensitive habitats and watersheds from continued urban sprawl.
• Growth should be accommodated according to "smart growth" principles --within already developed areas, using land more efficiently.

• TRAFFIC:  Increased development in outlying areas adds long daily commutes to our already congested freeways  -worsening traffic congestion and air pollution.
• Our limited transportation dollars should be used to solve existing traffic problems in urban areas instead of subsidizing new, expensive, sprawl-inducing freeway lanes to rural areas.  Too much growth in outlying areas creates competition for our limited regional transportation funding and leaves our urban areas neglected with continued grid-lock and funding deficits.
• Highway expansions in rural areas would induce even more sprawl urbanization and have tremendous impacts to the rural resources and communities.

• POPULATION: Please reduce the population targets for rural areas.  The proposed level of rural growth will have unacceptable impacts to traffic, air and water quality, and groundwater supplies.

• RURAL CHARACTER:  Please prevent residential sprawl from covering the countryside and destroying the rural character of the backcountry. Adopt strict rural design standards that will protect  rural character where development does occur.
• The rural atmosphere, the quiet and the dark skies, of San Diego's backcountry must be protected.  Light and noise pollution are the consequences of sprawl and destroy the rural character and serenity.

A comment letter from the Chapter that captures these points is included below.

For more info on GP2020:
http://www.sdcounty.ca.gov/cnty/cntydepts/landuse/planning/GP2020/index.html

Planning Commissioners:
http://www.sdcounty.ca.gov/dplu/commission.html

SIERRA CLUB, San Diego Chapter,
Statement on the GP 2020 Draft Distribution Map

The Sierra Club has about 18 thousand members in San Diego County.

The impacts and costs of population pressures and sprawling urbanization are readily apparent to county residents in the form of destruction of beautiful open spaces, neglected infrastructure in our cities, traffic congestion, endangered and threatened species, air and water pollution and the resulting beach closures.  These economic and environmental costs are well documented in such studies as "Beyond Sprawl" reported by Bank of America in 1995.

We know we must change our gluttonous development pattern and land use practices.   We must think and act responsibly so that we do not squander important resources that are vital to the economic and environmental security of future generations.

In this General Plan Update we ask that you support land use patterns outside of the country towns that are protective of our precious open space resources.    This pattern is reflected in "Concept D" created by the GP 2020 Interest Group.

We ask that you act now to steer new growth close to and within the country town boundaries.   We believe that strict rural design standards for development can enhance and protect the desirable community character within the country town.  This is the kind of land use pattern that can be supported by public transit alternatives eventually.

We ask that you establish well defined Country Town boundaries by supporting 40 acre or larger minimum lot sizes outside the country towns.  We strongly support the 80 and 160 acre rural categories now shown on the draft map in areas East of the County Water Authority line.

The General Plan policies we seek will:

• Provide for protection of, and sustainable use of our local water resources;
• Eliminate development yield in environmentally sensitive areas;
• Stop subsidizing sprawl development that wastes our infrastructure tax dollars on unaffordable estate houses on parcels of 1 acre to  20 acres in size.  Please reduce the areas proposed for these inefficient parcel sizes outside the country towns.

These 1 - 20 acre lots may be considered large lots when compared to some areas in the cities but they still require expensive urban infrastructure such as roads and these estate developments destroy the natural resources and do nothing to provide affordable housing.  Once the biological and agricultural resources are chased from the land with this "Semi-Urban" development, and new, expensive infrastructure is brought in to service the area, the door will be left wide open for increased urbanization, and continued sub-urban sprawl.

Our recommendations would instead direct infrastructure spending to support affordable housing in public transit oriented, mixed-use, village communities within existing urban areas.  If the Strategic Framework Plan and the City of  Villages concept is going to work in the City of San Diego, we will need to focus our infrastructure spending to support it.   If we don't focus our infrastructure spending for genuine smart growth, we will see a continued decline in quality of life in both the county and the city.

We must start thinking like a region determined to protect our natural resources for the long run, instead of an economic engine that caters to an unsustainable development pattern with fast-money as the number one goal.

We stand to lose our biodiversity, our local water supplies, agricultural land, our rural scenic treasures, and our overall quality of life if we don't adopt a plan that serves a regional vision and puts a stop to sprawl.

Thank you for supporting these recommendations and for protecting the future of our beautiful county.

If you have any questions about our policies on this General Plan Update, please contact Eric Bowlby, our representative on the GP 2020 Interest Group.   You can contact Eric Bowlby at 619-299-1743.

Thank you for your consideration.

Eric Bowlby
GP 2020 Representative for Sierra Club, San Diego Chapter

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