Page 9 - Sonoma County Gazette - January 2020

BOUNDARIES cont’d from page 1
When it comes to the price of homes even in small cities like Sonoma,
a UGB does not inflate the cost. Market research from the Metropolitan Transportation Commission and Association of Bay Area governments shows that home prices follow the real estate market and is not correlated with UGBs. Check your city’s or county’s housing prices against the Bay Area Median over the past two decades here: vitalsigns.mtc.ca.gov/home-prices
The main reason that developers prefer to build single-family homes on greenfields because it is more profitable. Single-family homes have been the model for development for many decades and what people wanted. General Plans and zoning codes have favored such development. However, we are now coming to grips with the result of sprawl development and its costs. Radical change is on the way to new, smaller, more sustainable homes. The UGB supports and enhances the way forward by requiring more efficient use of already developed land.
UGB Overview and History: The first urban growth boundary in the Bay Area was established in 1996 in the city of Petaluma. Since then, voters have implemented UGBs in their own communities in 38 cities across the Bay Area, with growth control measures approved by city councils (not voter-approved) in 11 more.
Diversity and UGBs: Urban Growth Boundaries ensure that communities are inclusive and diverse by directing the placement of homes of various types and affordability levels close to shops, services, and jobs. Pushing lower- income housing to the edge of town causes separation and more of a burden on families trying to get to work and school every day.
• Contra Costa County: Antioch, Contra Costa County, Danville, El Cerrito, Hercules, Martinez, Oakley, Orinda, Pinole, Pittsburg, Pleasant Hill, Richmond, San Pablo, San Ramon, Walnut Creek
Research shows that cities with and without UGBs have roughly the same ethnic balance. UGB cities actually tend to have lower per capita incomes, median home prices, and rates of ownership –meaning that renters are equally at home inside a UGB as homeowners: closup.umich.edu/files/pr-2- growthmgmt.pdf
• Marin County: Marin County, Novato
• Napa County: American Canyon, Napa, St. Helena, Yountville
• San Mateo County: San Mateo
• Santa Clara County: Cupertino, Gilroy, Los Gatos, Milpitas, Morgan Hill,
Four of the Bay Area’s nine counties have established urban growth boundaries or urban limit lines, and four others have growth regulations that serve a similar/equivalent purpose. The only county without any kind of geographic growth boundary is San Francisco – understandably.
The UGBs were controversial and divisive the first time around, with environmentalists and communities collecting signatures and campaigning against developers and businesses who claimed that city-centered growth would kill the economy. Now more than 20 years later, UGBs are proven and accepted across the board by planners, communities and most elected officials as successful.
All nine cities in Sonoma County adopted UGBs more than 20 years ago and most have renewed them once. Most recently voters in Rohnert Park renewed the existing UGB for another 20 years with an unprecedented 90 percent majority. The City of Sonoma is next in line to renew by the end of 2020, but the City Council is wavering due to development pressure to expand into the greenbelt.
It is likely we will see the need for more UGBs around the state of California, and perhaps, ultimately, what we need is state legislation that requires urban growth boundaries in every jurisdiction as is the case in Washington and Oregon states.
City and County Urban Growth Boundaries in the Bay Area
• Alameda County: Alameda County, Dublin, Fremont, Hayward, Livermore, Pleasanton
Palo Alto, San Jose
• Solano County: Benicia, Fairfield, Rio Vista, Vallejo, Vacaville
• Sonoma County: Cloverdale, Cotati, Healdsburg, Petaluma, Rohnert Park,
Santa Rosa, Sebastopol, Sonoma, Windsor
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