Urban growth boundary around Modesto qualifies for ballot

The proponents of placing an urban growth boundary around Modesto to protect farmland have gathered enough signatures to bring their proposal before voters.

The Stamp Out Sprawl campaign needed the signatures of at least 8,931 city voters to qualify its proposal for the ballot. The campaign turned in petitions with 10,509 signatures this month, and the Stanislaus County election office is reporting that 9,749 of the signatures are valid.

The City Council will accept the results of the initiative drive at a meeting this year and bring the proposal back next year to put it on the November 2015 ballot, according to city officials.

SOS organizer and former Councilman Denny Jackman said the council also has the option of adopting the urban growth boundary proposal as an ordinance, but he said he expects the proposal will go before voters.

“I would think it would end up on the ballot,” Jackman said. “It’s difficult for people who have authority to give it up.”

Stamp Out Sprawl calls for drawing an urban growth line around most of Modesto. The line would roughly follow Morse Road on the west, Kiernan Avenue-Claribel Road on the north, and Whitmore Avenue and the Tuolumne River on the south. The line is C-shaped and pushes growth to the east of Modesto along Claus Road, where the farmland is of lesser quality.

Modesto would need voter approval before it moves forward with commercial, industrial and residential development outside the boundary.

The SOS campaign was in part a reaction to Modesto’s efforts to amend its general plan, which serves as a blueprint for how the city will grow and develop. A majority of council members voted in January to include Wood Colony – a farming community west of Highway 99 – in the plan, to the dismay of a few hundred colony residents and their supporters who packed the meeting in opposition.

The council has designated several hundred acres in the colony for big-box retailers and business parks. The general plan amendment is undergoing an environmental review, and city officials have said they expect it could come before the council in mid-2016 for possible adoption.

This story was originally published October 23, 2014 at 2:49 PM with the headline "Urban growth boundary around Modesto qualifies for ballot."