Hollister Rescinds General Plan

Hollister 2040, we hardly knew ye. In what may be the shortest-lived adoption of a general plan in state history, the Hollister City Council approved a general plan update, along with its environmental impact report (and Climate Action Plan), in late December. A mere three months later, the city council rescinded the plan and committed $431,000 to draft a new one. It’s rare for a city to rescind a general plan – especially a recently adopted one. In doing so, the city may have exposed itself to sanctions, or lawsuits, from the Department of Housing and Community Development and lawsuits from housing advocacy organizations like Californians for Homeownership. The plan was designed in part to comply with the city’s Regional Housing Needs Allocation requirements, calling for 4,163 units (including 2,350 affordable units) to be added to the city of 44,500 by 2031. At issue was the question of whether the city should add 3,300 acres to its sphere of influence, with the prospect of annexing the acreage and zoning it for relatively low-density housing. The expanded sphere of influence would have formed a rough ring around the existing city limits, representing almost a doubling of the city’s geographical size. Located in mostly rural San Benito County, Hollister is either on the far southern extent of the Bay Area commute shed — or a rural redoubt, defiantly removed from urban commotion. “We felt that expanding the sphere of influence was not the kind of smart growth the city should be engaging in,” said Jessica Wohlander, policy and advocacy associate manager with environmental group Green Foothills.

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