Local land use decisions affect how well we preserve agricultural land and open space, maintain the region’s agricultural economy and working lands, reduce urban sprawl and traffic, and eliminate greenhouse gas emissions to fight climate change. Jobs, housing and other important destinations should be located inside existing cities and ideally within walking distance of transit - rather than on farmland at the edge of the region or in other places where people will be irrevocably car-dependent.
We urge LAFCO to uphold the principle of focusing the county’s growth into existing urban areas and demonstrate its commitment to preserving the county’s remaining agricultural land by denying this USA amendment request. We’ve seen the negative result of decades of sprawl development in the Bay Area and, from a county and regional perspective, we need to make sure we chart a future of growth that doesn’t mirror the past.