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Greenbelt Aliance

MORGAN HILL

morgan hill
Sidewalk improvements, especially around Morgan Hill's Caltrain station, will help increase foot traffic and transit use.

RECONSTRUCTING THE DOWNTOWN

Good urban design is central to Morgan Hill’s strategy. With redevelopment agency funding and grants from the Metropolitan Transportation Commission, the city is upgrading sidewalks and building facades along the streets that connect the Caltrain station to the main street. This will make the area more pedestrian-friendly and help boost transit use.

Morgan Hill has also made a commitment to affordable housing. The city requires 20% of new development to be affordable, and proposed developments are evaluated partly by how much affordable housing they include.

Protecting the Greenbelt
Morgan Hill is also actively working to protect its greenbelt. The city purchases open space for permanent protection. Its urban growth boundary keeps the city from sprawling out onto surrounding farms and hillsides—like nearby El Toro Mountain, a prominent feature on the local landscape. The city has also encouraged the transfer of development rights from El Toro Mountain into the town center.

 

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A Small-Town Approach

Morgan Hill’s experience demonstrates how efforts to preserve a small-town
atmosphere can evolve over time. In the 1970s, rapid suburban growth overwhelmed local water and sewer services and threatened surrounding
rural lands. In response, voters in this southern Santa Clara County city passed a growth cap. But the cap actually favored
low-density housing on the very greenbelt the community had wanted to protect. Investment drained away and stores
closed along the historic main street.

Recently, Morgan Hill has made efforts to turn that pattern around by encouraging
development downtown and protecting open space around the city. The city has already made good strides on implementing its 2003 Downtown Plan, which it is
now updating.

 

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