Monterey County voters must be wondering what the point is. They keep voting on land use ballot measures, but the votes resolve nothing.

A Coastal Commission decision on Wednesday, June 13, provides the latest example. The Commission voted 8-4 to reject the Pebble Beach Company's Del Monte Forest plan — a plan that 62% of Monterey County voters approved in 2000. The plan would permit development of a golf course and hotel, about 30 high-end houses and some worker housing, while providing permanent protection for about 800 acres of Monterey pine forest elsewhere (see CP&DR Environment Watch, July 2005).

The Coastal Commission voted 8-4 against the plan, even though it had the support of Commissioner Dave Potter, a slow-growth supervisor from Monterey County who represents the Monterey Peninsula. Potter argued that the plan was environmentally superior to a 1984 local coastal plan, which would permit much of the property in question to be chopped up into nearly 900 large lots for new houses. However, the Commission majority sided with staff members, who said the Pebble Beach Company's plan would result in unacceptable destruction of healthy stands of Monterey pines and fragile coastal habitat.

The Coastal Commission staff report goes over the plan in 197 pages of excruciating detail. You can find coverage of the Commission's meeting in the Los Angeles Times, the San Jose Mercury News, and the Monterey County Herald.

But back to my original point. The Coastal Commission decision came only eight days after Monterey County voters cast ballots on four land use measures. Results of two measures conflicted, as voters said they did not want to throw out a general plan update adopted by the county (Measure B) yet they did not want to upheld the plan either (Measure C). People must be scratching their heads.

On the same ballot was Measure D, a referendum on a project that voters rejected, in a different form, less than two years earlier. The project lost again at the polls last week, and is now headed for Monterey County Superior Court.

Monterey County voters have gotten accustomed to voting on major land use issues. What they haven't gotten used to is deciding major land use issues.

- Paul Shigley