High standards needed for housing and job development.
COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT & HOUSING - Poor landuse planning in the Bay Area that ignores the need to balance jobs with housing must not determine our landuse. The long-term goals of "Visioning" processes started by local government leaders must be demonstrated by their short-term actions. There is no credibility stating a long-term policy to protect farmland if short-term practices are to "house-over" the prime land of North Modesto and Salida. The "San Josation" of the Great Central Valley is not an option I accept. Housing development on non-prime soils is possible. Where we are not going to build becomes increasingly difficult as we avoid issues of human population impacts. Long-term planning to position our factories of the future requires cooperation between city and county governments. An action by one level of government that counters or complicates the actions of the other is not sensible. I call on county government to direct its job creation efforts for business parks and commercial zoning into our incorporated cities. Businesses outside our cities are not supporting the tax base required to support urban services. Economic Development is a part of Community Development. We must not degrade our community by limiting our job generator focus to retail sales for local tax revenues. Good jobs will mostly be generated by our local existing businesses. We need to continue to streamline the cost of doing business with our local government and provide incentives to businesses that provide good jobs.
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