Illustration by Leigh Douglas

The Local Agency Formation Commission (LAFCO) cancelled the public hearing of UC Santa Cruz’s application for the development of North Campus that was scheduled for Monday, December 3 at 9:30 a.m.

The hearing was cancelled due to the outcome of the state appeals court’s examination of the City of Santa Cruz’s Environmental Impact Report for the development of North Campus. The court ruled that it was inadequate on the grounds that it did not provide enough alternatives to the development plan.

“The state law requires an Environmental Impact Report to contain a series of alternatives to the actual project that is proposed to be built,” said Patrick McCormick, LAFCO’s executive officer. “A group sued, and the court found that there were not enough alternatives in the Environmental Impact Report, and therefore the document was defective. Therefore LAFCO doesn’t have an adequate basis to go forward with its decision.”

Both the city and the university had to submit applications to LAFCO in order to extend city services to the area of North Campus that is set aside for development in the Long Range Development Plan.

The city and the university have a mutual interest in developing North Campus. While the University of California has an obligation to provide more students with housing for their education, said Jim Burns, the director of public information at UCSC, the city is interested in having less students housed off campus due to traffic and water usage concerns.

“Housing students on campus would inherently have a positive effect on traffic, housing, neighborhoods and in fact have a positive effect on per capita water use,” Burns said. “Students living on campus uses less water than students living off campus. It has to do with denser housing, and that the landscaping can be done more efficiently.“

The group that sued is the local, informal group called Habitat and Watershed Caretakers, McCormick said. Such local groups have expressed concern over the impact that campus expansion would have on the city’s already limited water sources. The court’s decision implicates the pertinence of these concerns in the state of California.

“If the city and university decide to fix the Environmental Impact Report and bring it back to us,” McCormick said, “it will have more information about an alternative that would reduce the impact of the additional demand for water on the city.”

As the mediator, LAFCO takes a neutral stance in the debate.

“We are a hearing body,” McCormick said. “We haven’t made our decision. We were not on the university side, we weren’t on the environmentalist side, during litigation. We’re just observers at this point.”

A public hearing will take place if the city amends its application such that it provides additional alternatives to the original plan, and if the court deems these alternatives to be adequate.

“We don’t agree with the court,” Burns said, “and at this point in time we’re consulting with the city to determine what we do next.”

In planning for almost 10 years, the construction would demolish a large section of the forest in Upper Campus. It would also call for increased water usage for the campus. The result of the development would be two new colleges and the addition of a few thousand more students and faculty.

The county of Santa Cruz and some local non-profits have filed a lawsuit against the campus, prompting LAFCO to act as a mediator between these conflicting parties. Their hearing will decide whether or not to extend the water and sewage services of the city into Upper Campus, which is not currently within city limits. If LAFCO approves this service extension, construction will go forward.

Gary Patton, an environmental lawyer who represents the Community Water Coalition — a local non-profit dedicated to water issues in the city — has cited a few reasons for the meeting’s postponement.

“I believe that a number of factors may have played a role,” Patton said. “Relevant new information is coming out from both the city and the NOAA Fisheries and the Department of Fish and Game. Plus, having a major decision-making meeting the day after Election Day might have made it hard for various members of the commission to be as rested, ready and prepared as they would have liked.”

Patton also said one of the commissioners, Roger Anderson, was traveling the day of the originally planned meeting and was unavailable. Patton said Anderson is a key member for both sides of the debate and that his input is invaluable.

The postponed meeting will take place at 9:30 a.m. on Dec. 5 at the County Governmental Center. 

Illustration by Christine Hipp.

The Santa Cruz Local Agency Formation Commission (LAFCO) ruled to delay a vote on UC Santa Cruz’s proposed Long Range Development Plan (LRDP) to their October session.

Held Wednesday morning, the four-hour forum covered topics ranging from water credits to the sustainability of the LRDP. Participants in the discussion included LAFCO commissioners, students, professors, Santa Cruz residents and UC administrators.

The LRDP is an initiative that would expand UCSC campus housing into the Upper Campus area above Colleges Nine and Ten. Plans to advance the LRDP were originally proposed at a December LAFCO meeting, while a vote on applicable water restrictions to the proposed plan occurred at the March 7 session.

Before entering the 9:30 a.m. meeting, about 100 opponents of the LRDP gathered to plan their speaking strategy. After Chancellor George Blumenthal, former mayor Ryan Coonerty and former commissioner of LAFCO Gary Patton opened the meeting, opponents discussed the Upper Campus archaeological sites of the federally unrecognized Ohlone tribe, the welfare of the endangered Ohlone tiger beetle and wild salmon and the sustainability of LRDP. A 2,751 name petition of students and faculty against the development plan was presented by UCSC anthropology profesor Anna Tsing to the commsioners.

Early in the meeting, Blumenthal offered a proposal to delay the LRDP vote of the day in exchange for looser restrictions on water usage. He detailed a policy of paying $10,000 for every 1 million gallons that UCSC runs over the 176 million gallons, in exchange for UCSC being allowed a provisional cap of 206 million gallons per year.

Micha Rahder, a UCSC anthropology graduate student, expressed concern over the proposal’s effect on the environment.

“This has more to do with the real estate interests of the UCSC administration than the educational policy side of the administration,” she said. “Despite being in a financial crisis, UCSC needs to figure out a way to raise more funds without endangering wildlife.”

LAFCO commissioner John Leopold proposed a subcommittee that would attempt to reconcile the issues raised by students and residents with the university’s plan. Leopold and Mayor Don Lane cited the threat of legal action from the UC to LAFCO as the reasoning behind the creation of the proposed subcommittee.

But former LAFCO commissioner and current legal representative of the California Wildlife Center Gary Patton felt Leopold’s proposal was too generous to the administration’s interests.

“I’m disappointed by the board’s decision to delay,” Patton said. “Leopold’s subcommittee needs to take into account third party evaluations of the project. The board needs to make a decision, and they need to decide now.”

Blumenthal said the commissioners made the right choice in delaying the LRDP vote.

“I’d rather see a delayed vote and see the board get it right then to vote quickly in haste,” Blumenthal said. “Delaying the vote was wise.”

LAFCO will reopen the LRDP plan at a public session in August, with voting held at their October meeting. To learn more about the Save Upper Campus movement, see their website at www.teachtheforest.wordpress.com 

Illustration by Kenny Srivijittakar.

The Santa Cruz Local Area Formation Commission (LAFCO) is preparing to make an important decision as to whether or not UC Santa Cruz should be allowed to expand into the undeveloped area known as North Campus.

In a 2008 comprehensive settlement agreement, the university agreed to apply to LAFCO, a local boundary commission, to expand water and sewer services to North Campus. This agreement is seen as a promising start to improving campus-community relations, because it has settled many lawsuits — brought by the city and community groups — regarding the expansion proposed in UCSC’s Long-Range Development Plan.

The 2008 deal stipulates that in return for expansion of these services to North Campus, the university is obligated to house 67 percent of the anticipated additional 4,500 students on campus. However, if LAFCO delays approval or denies the university’s application, UCSC is no longer required to house the promised amount of students.

Vice Mayor Ryan Coonerty, who is also a UCSC legal studies professor, explained the importance of LAFCO’s approval to the future of campus-community relations.

“If LAFCO doesn’t approve of the deal it would be bad for both sides,” Coonerty said. “For the city, housing students on campus is a very big deal because it not only takes the pressure off of housing for the city, it also means that there is less traffic to the university.”

LAFCO’s executive officer Pat McCormick said that the housing provision of the agreement, which depends on the commission’s approval, would not influence its decision.

“LAFCO will make its decision based on its mission and its responsibilities under state law,” McCormick said. “But we are certainly aware of the way the agreement is structured.”

McCormick said that LAFCO must take a finalized Environmental Impact Report (EIR) into account before making any decisions. The comment period on the first draft of the EIR, which enabled groups and individuals to suggest changes or additions to the report, ended on Jan. 19. A finalized EIR will be released after all of these concerns are taken into account.

The EIR reveals that while the expansion of water and sewer services can be accommodated during normal conditions, water is short during the dry summer months and in drought conditions. McCormick said that LAFCO had read the draft EIR and suggested, among other things, that the final EIR adequately address the potential burden that the additional consumption would place on water resources.

“LAFCO is asking for the EIR to have additional drought mitigations,” McCormick said. “What more can the city and the university do to reduce additional demand during drought periods if that occurs?”

Bill Kocher, the Santa Cruz water director, explained that there is enough water to meet the needs of UCSC expansion, and that this increase has been expected and prepared for since the 2008 agreement was reached.

“The truth is that an amount of water exists in the system,” Kocher said. “We’ve already anticipated their need for that water in our planning. It has already been admitted to them, in a sense.”

Coonerty explained that the 2008 deal actually encourages UCSC’s conservation efforts, since the university must pay a premium for any additional water consumed. UCSC also agreed to abide by water rationing during times of drought. He used these examples to demonstrate improved cooperation between the university and the city.

“The city and the university are working together like they never worked together before,” Coonerty said. “We’re doing collaborative planning, UCSC is putting in new water-saving conservation efforts — really working together.”

However, Coonerty warned that the period of improved cooperation brought about by the 2008 settlement agreement could come to an end if LAFCO denies approval, causing the housing provision of the deal to fall through.

“One of my other fears is if this breaks down, we’ll go back to the days where we didn’t talk to them and they didn’t talk to us,” Coonerty said. “We can get a lot more done to improve the quality of life for everybody through cooperation.”