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Local activist Andy Hsia-Coron announced March 12 that he had reintroduced an initiative to slow growth.
At the San Benito County Board of Supervisor meeting, Hsia-Coron said, “We reintroduced our initiative that gives the voters the power over these major land use decisions. We’ll soon be collecting signatures on this initiative. It’s with the county counsel right now.
“I spent a lot of time knocking on doors the last few weeks talking to people and it’s really clear there is a very very strong sentiment in San Benito to slow the growth and to make sure that the opinions of people in the county are honored rather than disrespected,” Hsia-Coron told the meeting.
He said proposed projects such as the John Smith Road Landfill expansion and Strada Verde vehicle testing facility have put the county at a crossroads.
“Are we going to be a county that is a great place to live, that protects its agriculture, protects its tourism?” Hsia-Coron asked. “Or are we just going to be like a third world nation, where they locate mega dumps, where they mine our rivers and our wildlife corridors, and where they cover all our farmlands with housing tracts that make it impossible for people to have any quality of life?”
BenitoLink requested a copy of the initiative from the San Benito County Elections Department but did not receive it in time for publication.
Hsia-Coron’s first attempt, with the Campaign to Protect San Benito, to change the process in which properties are rezoned and remove areas identified for commercial development in the county’s General Plan failed in 2022 with 56% of the voters opposing it. The initiative was called Let Voters Decide How San Benito County Grows and became Measure Q on the ballot.
Measure Q proposed that any agricultural, rural, or rangeland zoning changes within the county’s unincorporated area be approved by the voters. It also proposed to remove nine commercial areas identified for revenue potential called “nodes” from the General Plan, which serves as the county’s blueprint for growth.
Proposed San Benito County Nodes:
Hwy 25 at:
Hwy 156 at:
- Fairview Road
- Union Road
- San Felipe Road
- Highway 25
- Hwy 156B (San Juan Hollister Road)
Shore Road at:
Union Road at:
Hsia-Coron was also involved in Preserve Our Rural Communities (PORC) which opposed commercial developments on Hwy 101 (Measure K, 2020) and in efforts to prohibit fracking in the county (Measure J, 2014).
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