BUELLTON IS OUR TOWN

Buellton’s proposed Urban Growth Boundary (UGB) would coincide with Buellton’s current city boundaries. The UGB Initiative would add language to Buellton’s General Plan requiring that proposals to expand Buellton’s Urban Growth Boundary, be approved by a simple majority vote in a city election. The city council would need a majority vote of the people before it could allow urbanized uses on lands outside of the current city limits.

Buellton’s city boundary and sphere of influence are now the same. This UGB Initiative would still allow local government to change Buellton’s sphere of influence, but, with just a few exceptions, it would prevent urban land uses from occurring outside the city’s current boundary, which would become the Urban Growth Boundary.

The initiative makes exceptions for public schools, public parks, and, if strict findings are made, affordable housing. The initiative provides for these uses without a vote of the electorate so long as the council follows proper notice and public participation procedures.

If a majority of Buellton voters supports and passes this initiative in the November 2008 election, it would amend and supersede any inconsistent provisions in Buellton’s General Plan. If the UGB Initiative passes in the November 4, 2008 election, the City Council must amend the General Plan to include the UGB language as soon as possible. The UGB would remain in effect for the life of Buellton’s 2025 General Plan, or about 17 years. During that period voters can change it at any time. After that period voters could renew or adjust the UGB in the context of the nest General Plan update.

On July 12, 2007, Buellton’s city council voted 3-2 to stop a process that could have expanded the city’s sphere of influence by five-fold, from the its present 1.6 square miles to 7.92 square miles. An article in the Santa Barbara Independent noted the following:

"It was a slim victory, but the proposal precipitated an unprecedented outpouring of emotion and public testimony. Hundreds of concerned Buellton residents and neighbors throughout the Santa Ynez Valley circulated petitions, organized a citizens’ action group (Buellton Is Our Town), and spoke out with unexpected passion in defense of their community.” (A Little City Finds Its Voice“” by Cynthia Carbonne Ward (June 21-28, 2007)

In a three-week period before the hearing, nearly 1000 people—600 from within Buellton’s city limits—signed petitions to halt the sphere of influence process and over 200 people attended the dramatic council hearing. Citizens were concerned that enlarging the sphere of influence would lead down the slippery slope of urban sprawl—undermining Buellton’s small town character, threatening surrounding agricultural lands, and compromising the aesthetic and environmental qualities that the city’s General Plan was designed to safeguard. This victory will be only fleeting without a voter-created Urban Growth Boundary (UGB). The city council can restart the sphere expansion process at any time. A consultant to a developer quietly boasted at the council meeting, that even though the people won the battle, his side always win the war. And until UGB's came along, they always did.

When Buellton incorporated as a city in 1992, the vote was close. Debate centered on whether cityhood would spur or check unmanaged growth. Supporters swayed voters by promising that cityhood was the way to keep Buellton a small town and give the people of Buellton more power in determining the future of their community.

Dick Wilson: “I believe that Buellton’s future should not be dependant on one person’s vision, but should be reached by community consensus.” (Los Padres Sun, Aug. 28, 1991)

Bill Traylor: “Everyone I know expresses a firm desire to limit commercial, industrial, and residential expansion in our community.” (SYV News Oct. 10, 1991)

Victoria Pointer: “I have a genuine interest in this town and would like to see its country atmosphere preserved down the road of change.” (SYV News, Sept. 25, 1991)

Santa Barbara New Press: "Eight city council candidates all sound the same. They pledge to manage growth to prevent unchecked building of new homes and businesses.” (Oct. 18, 1992)

The proposed sphere of influence expansion--which occurred with little public participation--violated the understanding on which people backed cityhood. An Urban Growth Boundary will hold current and future council members to the pledges made when Buellton became a city. The city will grow only if the citizens say so

When the boundaries for Buellton were first drawn, the city boundary and the sphere of influence boundary were the same. They still are, but only because of citizen action. These identical boundaries were to keep Buellton from growing outward and were the means to follow through on the pledge to keep Buellton small. The proposed expansion of the sphere of influence boundary was the first step towards annexing new lands into the city and changing the city boundaries. The best way to assure that the current boundary is kept, unless the people want to change it, is to create an Urban Growth Boundary (UGB) giving the people the power to vote on proposed changes.

Buellton’s General Plan, which serves as the city’s constitution, sets out the following as its primary goals:

• To preserve the small-town character of Buellton.

• To safeguard and enhance the unique aesthetic and environmental qualities of Buellton.

• To ensure that the surrounding agriculture is maintained and enhanced.

The General Plan spells out how the city is to realize these goals: by focusing growth inward, avoiding annexation and sprawling development, and ensuring that any new residential areas are within easy walking and biking distance of the city center (Land Use Elements, Goal #5, Policy L-3). See this link.

Instead of examining how development would further General Plan goals, the sphere of influence process pressumed Buellton’s expansion and focused on certain factors that might limit growth in specific areas. As frequently happens, the General Plan goals were ignored in the documents and in the official debate. A voter-created Urban Growth Boundary (UGB) would ensure that expansion is discussed openly in the electoral process. Voter support for growth would depend on compelling arguments of how growth would serve community goals.

Buellton’s proposed sphere of influence expansion led some landowners to start withdrawing their lands from Williamson Act protections. (The Act gives tax incentives to those who keep their land in farms and ranches.) They were eagerly anticipating windfall profits from converting agricultural land to urban uses. Concept plans for massive new development were submitted to the planning department. Speculators started going door-to-door courting small landowners on Highway 246, trying to induce them to sell.

Despite the public outcry, talk of expansion continues— even though build-out for the current city boundaries is not projected to occur until 2035 and even though expansion could increase Buellton’s quota of state-mandated new housing in the county. If Buellton is to escape the fate of Santa Maria or Lompoc, the citizens must institute measures that give them a greater voice in the decision about outward growth. They must tilt the balance of power to favor the people over the developers and city council. An Urban Growth Boundary (UGB) does just that.

Cities throughout California have planning commissioners and council members who promised to maintain the charm and livability of their communities. Cities throughout California have general plans designed to maintain greenbelts, downtowns, and the quality of life that residents value. But everywhere we see sprawl, the loss of agricultural land and open space, and no one can tell where one town ends and the next begins. The San Fernando Valley, from Los Angeles to Thousand Oaks, is a prime example of the loss of community character and run-on strip malls where farms, orchards, and ranches used to be.

Why? Those who profit from unmanaged growth have shaped the rules to their own advantage. The pattern has been to continually expand spheres of influence, annex and build, leading to unrelenting sprawl. The forces favoring unchecked growth establish cozy relations with appointed and elected officials, often financing campaigns. They hire expensive consultants, lobbyists, and lawyers whose job is to manipulate the process and limit public knowledge and participation at every stage. They go through back doors and meet in back rooms. They cast fundamental questions of a community’s character as technical questions to be left to the “experts.” They reap their profits and cash out, leaving a host of problems in their wake (traffic, overcrowded schools, inadequate infrastructure and services, and higher taxes).

People, who often spend long hours commuting because of sprawling development, want to spend their off-hours with their families and enjoying their lives. They weary of a rigged system that has them fighting continual brushfires, in their off-work hours, and that denies them a real say in the basic question—how big should my community be? The growth profiteers like it just this way. They prevail unless the people stand up and say “no.” City councils cannot and will not. An Urban Growth Boundary (UGB) put the reins into the hands of the people so they guide the path their community will take.

When three members of the Buellton city council voted to halt the sphere of influence expansion process, a developer’s consultant boasted to a bystander that the people’s victory was only temporary. Indeed, the forces for growth have not gone away. Discussions about a renewed sphere of influence expansion are continuing.

Yet, as the Independent article observed, “the folks here have decided to play an active role in developing a clearer picture of what their community should be, working together for change that makes sense.” (See “A Little City Finds Its Voice” by Cynthia Carbonne Ward, at this link.)

An Urban Growth Boundary that is established by the people and can only be changed by a vote of the people will shift the balance of power, allowing for a more vibrant community in Buellton. The people— not a simple majority of three city council members—need to make the critical decisions regarding Buellton’s size and character.