Probably the most interesting meeting to date about the proposed Urban Limit Line (ULL) in Morgan Hill happened on Tuesday. The ULL is supposed to indicate either the permanent limit to the city’s growth, or its limit in fifty years, depending on the person describing it. This contrasts with the city’s current Urban Growth Boundary, which limits growth for a 20-year period. Environmentalists are generally not happy about the ULL, as it seems to increase the pressure to develop. The city has been holding out the prospect of a greenbelt and open space conservation in order meet some environmental goals,...

Joni Mitchell, who wrote the song with the lyrics “they paved paradise and put up a parking lot”, may not have realized her connection to obscure tax code provisions. Brian Leiter, a professor from the University of Texas, might see it. Leiter reports on a proposal to accelerate capital depreciation schedules to a single year, which he says will have the effect of creating a tax profit off of money-losing speculative ventures, such as pink hotels, swinging hot spots, and associated parking lots. Interestingly, he states the schedule was made much shorter in 1954, near the beginning of America’s post-war...

Today’s SF Examiner has an article about an operation that’s trucking food waste from restaurants in San Francisco not to the landfill, but to a giant composting plant in Vacaville. This is a creative way to keep landfills from filling as quickly (and could alleviate, or delay, problems such as that posed by Santa Cruz County’s need for a new site) and, as it turns out, also provides real and measurable benefits to the agricultural and other operations using the finished compost. – Kathy

Next to Stevens Creek and Stevens Creek County Park lies an undeveloped 124-acre parcel that had been proposed for a 1,500-student private academy. Besides destroying the parcel’s environmental value, the proposal would have had significant traffic impacts and access issues. Canyon Heights Academy has now announced an alternative, permanent location for their school, on the site of a former elementary school in Campbell. The short-term threat to Stevens Creek appears to have passed. The next question though is what will happen to the 124-acre parcel. More development proposals may come down the pike, but conservationists might consider it as a...

In Santa Clara County, one increasingly hears the argument that “farming is doomed.” Farmers have told CGF that it isn’t just a matter of them wanting to make windfall profits by selling to developers, but that they can’t make any profits at all being farmers in the County. While this is likely an exaggeration, there may be an element of truth to it as well. Farming is certainly no longer a dominant feature of our local economy. As compared to other counties in California, local farmers probably face higher labor costs; more expensive and difficult access to equipment, supplies, and...

CGF’s Executive Director Tom Cronin pointed out another interesting article in Bay Area news: an environmental cemetery in Marin County. The cemetery will come with a permanent conservation easement with guaranteed public access and trails, it will sell “internment rights” on 5% of the land, and it uses the funding to protect the environment through such things as removing non-native plants. Several years ago, CGF had opposed a cemetery proposal for unincorporated County land in Santa Clara County. If someone had come up with a proposal like this, our reaction might have been different.

Interesting article in today’s Mercury News, discussing mosquito control in Santa Clara County, done mostly to prevent the West Nile virus from spreading. My biggest fear, that pressure would be placed to drain wetlands, does not seem to be happening. The pesticides being used could be of some concern, although the bacterial control does seem safe. As we mentioned earlier, this is an issue that bears watching from an environmental standpoint, not just a health perspective. -Brian