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Email Alert #31
July 28, 2003
It's time to SAY NO to URBAN SPRAWL !
Are you tired of watching more and more land be consumed by urbanization? Will they ever draw a line? We're growing too fast and it's critically important to draw that line now. If we each play a small part, we can get the job done and generations of San Diegans will benefit.
The Sierra Club has enthusiastically endorsed the "Rural Lands Initiative" for Clean Water and Forests to be placed on the ballot in March, 2004. This initiative, from Save Our Forests and Ranchlands, is also endorsed by water quality advocates San Diego Bay Keeper and Surfrider Foundation. It will provide voters with a voice in protecting about 700,000 acres of the most sensitive wilderness lands in San Diego County from being unnecessarily developed. It will limit the traffic, water pollution, and air pollution resulting from unwise development in these distant rural areas.
WHAT YOU CAN DO
In order to qualify the intitiative we need to gather signatures from 66,000 San Diego County registered voters and we only have two months left to do it.
Please call or e-mail Martha Coffman to find out how you can pitch in, and do your part to STOP SPRAWL once and for ALL.
E-Mail: conservation@sierraclubsandiego.org.
Phone: 619-299-1743.
More Backgroud Information
COUNTY PLANNING? When compared to the proposed County General Plan Update (GP 2020), the initiative greatly improves protection of rural resources located mostly in lands east of the "County Water Authority" line. These are ground-water dependent areas, where wells were drying up in record numbers just last year, -where we have important source waters for local water supplies, where we have the forests and abundant wildlife, and rich scenic values.
WATER SUPPLIES, AND CLOSED BEACHES? If we ribbon these forested lands with roads, driveways, lawns, and rooftops, the stormwater runoff will carry more pollutants than ever to our drinking water reservoirs and on down to our beaches. We already have to close our beaches for 3 or 4 days after every rain storm because of pollution in the urban runoff. We must protect the source waters of our rivers and streams from destructive urbanization.
FOREST CONSERVATION? In 1993, voters over-whelmingly approved the "Forest Conservation Initiative" (FCI) which is due to sunset in year 2010. Already developers are planning to urbanize parts of these forests when the FCI terminates. This NEW initiative extends the protection of the FCI lands to year 2023 and increases the level of protection.
INFRASTRUCTURE COSTS? We must focus our limited funding to solve our existing infrastructure deficits and fund solutions to our unbearable urban traffic problems.
We cannot afford to continue to waste our tax-dollars on highly inefficient and expensive sprawl in distant rural areas. The initiative helps us concentrate infrastructure investment in urban areas where we will need it most as we grow.
AFFORDABLE HOUSING? Most of the capacity for growth is already being planned in our cities and in the more western parts of the County. The estate or ranchette housing we would see in the eastern rural areas would not be affordable, however they would require the most costly urban infrastructure and services in the county. In a sense, the intitiative gives us an "urban investment line" so that we can maintain our quality of life in the cities where most of our growth will go and where our truley affordable housing will be developed. If we wind up subsidizing development in the most distant rural areas, our cities will remain neglected and we will not have enough funding to effectively relieve our traffic congestion and grid-lock problems.
We do not have to waste our rural scenic serenity, watersheds, agriculture, and wildlife as Los Angeles and Orange Counties have done. We must say no to sprawl once and for all!
Please contact Martha Coffman to volunteer to gather signatures, or for more information on how you can help. If you can't help gather signatures, please consider making a substantial contribution toward this effort. Make check payable to "Sierra Club" and send to 3820 Ray St, San Diego, 92104, and write "Stop Sprawl" in the memo space.
Thank you for your prompt action.
Eric Bowlby
Co-Chair, Smart Growth Task Force
Sierra Club, San Diego Chapter
619-284-9399
savewetlands@compuserve.com
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