Height Limit Truce Good for City
Architect Brian Cearnal called the proposed height limit of forty feet for buildings downtown "draconian" in an article in The Daily Sound yesterday, pointing out that the Coffee Cat building is taller than that, yet an appropriate use of space. Meanwhile Council Member Das Williams wondered out loud why he was butting heads with friends and mentors over the issue.
Both sides have agreed to a truce if council votes for an interim ordinance while the specifics of the General Plan update is worked out. Sounds like a deal the council shouldn't refuse to me....
Both sides have agreed to a truce if council votes for an interim ordinance while the specifics of the General Plan update is worked out. Sounds like a deal the council shouldn't refuse to me....
Labels: City of Santa Barbara, Height Limitations
posted by Sara De la Guerra | 4/18/2008 04:57:00 AM
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47 Comments:
Brian Cernal should not be a spokesperson for anything - he is behind the massive Cottage/St Francis Hospital project and in the pocket of every developer in town who thinks using him as their architect they will get a green light for anything they try to cram down this city.
Getting in bed with Brian Cernal is no compromise. Keep plugging away height limitation people - lots of people are supporting you to stop this tall building nonsense that is ruining our city, but feathering the pockets of every developer architect in this town.
Smell building industry interests behind every single "growth" imperative. You will never find a single neighborhood interest behind any of them.
Dale Francisco was only the first of the many changes voters will be putting on the next city council and mayor's job.
Growth advocates are doomed in the next election because residents have a heck of a lot more voters than the building industry and all their outside friends have. This will not be forgotten next election.
Hey Brian, the Coffee Cat Building is too damn tall. That is the worst example you can think of. It was built when they thought the Granada Building was the tone of the city.
That was in the last century Brian, and we are not going back. Your argument totally fails except exposing how bankrupt and out of touch developer interests are for this town.
You need to wake up and smell the Coffee Cat, Brian. And it is time change your kitty litter lined with stinking dollar bills.
It does sound like a good approach. Leaving it to be dealt with during the general plan process makes sense.
A good start, maybe, except the dateline of November 2009 is WAY too late. It should be at least a year sooner.
It sounds to me like the peoples' representatives (Williams/Schneider) are attempting to bypass the will of the people with this 52 height limit (not 40) and delaying it so long that all the developers will have their feet, legs, torsos in the door with the buildings like those on Chapala soon to follow.
Mr. Mahan, who approved the Chapala buildings AND then helped start the petition gathering, does not speak for all.
Interesting who is NOT in those photos in the Independent standing next to Cearnal, Peikert, Davis, Pujo....
(To save hunting it up: not there are Mayor Blum, Councilmember Dale Francisco, the LWV who are signature gatherers, and quite a few more who support a max. of 40' for the old part of Santa Barbara downtown, El Pueblo Viejo (plus other commercial parts of downtown.)
Change the date the to 11/2008 and THEN let's begin talking.
BTW, the Daily Sound article was today, not yesterday per the Sara DLG posting here.
Yep, Santa Barbarians want more affordable housing but less new building development.
Congratulations to all in this tentative Treaty of Pueblo Viejo, but the details of this Ordinance will need some work on the key bargaining points of the 30 and 200 figures.
The deal to require only 30% of the residential units at a whopping 200% of the local median household income still leads to lots of luxury condos that only exacerbate the problem of the growing gentrification of Santa Barbara that creates more and more demand for low-wage service workers who contribute to traffic and associated urban challenges.
A household annual income at the 200% figure is still way above an annual income of more than $100 thousand.
Reduce the "affordable" definition to only 100% of the local median income and raise the number of units to 50% of those built in these taller buildings, and then we can have an Ordinance that actually makes Santa Barbara better.
The City Council will need some Courage to shift to these better figures and resist the pressure and complaints and the "it does not pencil out" whines of the Building Development Industrial Complex.
Many of the locals in the building industry are nice folks, but they do make their money from more and more building, so their motivations are inherently conflicted.
"That was in the last century Brian, and we are not going back."
So, to which century would the 40-footers have us revert our thinking? They obviously aren't looking forward.
Maybe they prefer the one in which the Santa Barbara Mission was built? Oh wait. Too tall.
Or maybe we should just give the land back to the Indians. Teepees are seldom 40 feet high.
Or perhaps we should go way, way back - back to the days of our evolutionary predecessors who were incapable of engineering even simple tools.
We must think of how best to accommodate for a future that is going to happen whether we yearn for the past or not. Capping creative solutions to housing problems at 40-feet is foolish planning.
I rather like the "Copy Cat" building...I find it rather Renaissance-like. Nothing wrong with it at all--if you want my opinion.
However, abandoning the County Building across the street to the bulldozer may be quite helpful in terms of community aesthetics...it is so ugly that it actually looks like a piece of UCSB brought downtown.
I see by the photos today at the referenced Council Meeting, that Dave Davis, former head of Community Development, is now head of Environmental Defense Council. Is that right? That's very interesting!
Brian Cearnal knows the talk that's for sure...
What is "Environmental Defense Council"?
I think Dave has been at the EDC for a couple of years now...
That would be Environmental Defense Center -- they do legal work on behalf of environmental causes especially having to do with oil and open space.
Davis is the Exec. Dir. Community Environmental Council; David Landeckder is the Exec. Dir. of the Envir. Defense Center.
Sara, since you bring up Brian Cearnal here's my own experience with him. At last year's I Madonnari chalk festival my square was next to his. His drawing was an image of the Macy's Thanksgiving Parade in Manhattan. There was a caption that said, "Now that's canyonization".
I thought, "That's not right". The rules of I Madonnari are clear. There are to be no commercial or political statements. And Cearnal is guilty of violating this. I almost took a sponge and wiped off the phrase. But I didn't. However, I did take photos.
IMHO, Cearnal is a Yabbadabbadoo. He thinks he can just break the rules. Therefore, in my opinion he has no credibility in these larger issues.
Actually, Dave Davis is now the Director of the Community Environmental Council (CEC)
http://www.communityenvironmentalcouncil.org/index.cfm
You can say "hello" to him at the big Earth Day celebration this Sunday.
But, there's more to do this weekend for all of us interested in our City. Go to the Saturday Comminity Session on the City's General Plan on April 19 from 9 to 12 in the Faulkner Gallery, Library.
Correction: Santa Barbara does not want affordable housing.
People living outside Santa Barbara want affordable housing. They don't vote here and only the building industry are their spokespeople and the feelgood do-gooders are the building industry lackies.
But NO one who actually lives in Santa Barbara, no voting majority, wants affordable housing. So stop repeating this claim because it is not true.
Interesting about I Madonnari...there are a few rules that aren't followed every year at that event. One isn't supposed to use words but there are often politically correct squares which tell you not to smoke...no one says anything because of the message and that they were made by kids.
Thank you readers and crew of blogabarbara for all the precisions about what Dave Davis is doing! Unfortunately Don Jose was inside a bowl of Sangria when posting. (Sara has warned us about this--hope she doesn't tell Angustias what I was up to, she has a dangerous pen.)
For my money,and for all practical purposes, Dave Davis was the master the universe in Santa Barbara development for thirty years--so he is either the holy angel of our present situation downtown or else the devil himself! (I have only seen him fail with an IMAX theatre, Southwest Museum, and housing, all wrapped into one package contemplated the beach.)
I am trying to get my mind around the idea of Dave at Community Environmental Council and what that could mean.
He retired some years ago, got on the Board of the Metropolitan Transit District, was an adviser in the vast hospital manoeuvres, and thus I'd say to all of you when Dave appears on the scene, both developers and the City stand up and salute, and you should keep your eye on ball.
Personally, I find Dave right up my alley. If you think Brian Cearnel can talk the talk, pay attention to what Dave sings...Brian does prose, Dave does Developer poetry...he's our community's big idea guy.
Just wish he'd push the Plaza...and in case you're thinking of it I don't think Dave would want to work at City Hall again...even if he was mayor. He's too smart for that.
Oh yes. One last point. If you ever want to talk to someone about the history of French Canada and New Orleans, he's the guy. His ancestors ran it all...
Cernal's inappropriate words on his I Madonnari drawaing speak a thousand pictures of an attitude that will destroy Santa Barbara - and most of all a picture of him laughing all the way to the bank.
Well, if Brian Cearnal is for it, I'm against it. He's about as creative as a cubic meter of clay.
I'm OK with the height of the new buildings on Chapala. I like taller buildings. I'm tired of the shmaltzy faux-spanish colonial theme here. Now San Juan, Puerto Rico, that has the real thing, and is quite interesting place, architecturally speaking.
But I'd rather have some creativity that updated the style into the 21st century or into a bit more realistic representation (a la Mexico, Quito... ) of the style.
Height limits? pah.
Legion,
I beg to differ on the afffordable housing issue.
There are tens of thousands of people working and renting in Santa Barbara. Many have saved their pennies for years, only to find that the housing market has outstripped their earning ability. They would like to have affordable housing they could call a poermanent home. And they vote and pay taxes...just like you. Sixty percent of our citizens are renters.
Brian Cearnal and Wendy McCaw deserve each other. They have similar angry expressions and scorn for others.
But as for "my name is legion said...
Correction: Santa Barbara does not want affordable housing...."
That's not true: Mickey Flacks wants affordable housing so more people can move here --- and she does live here in a large house in the upper east side. Others do also, probably — but why should the city subsidize (with taller buildings and more units) those with incomes over $120,000? (ie. 200% of the median income.)
The point should be that no one has ever come up with exact numbers (or any numbers?) of who wants to live here and pay what?
There's a lot of stuff thrown out about air pollution on 101 on how that will be solved or helped by more housing in SB. Yet much of air pollution comes from residential housing. And how many of those commuters are in fact going to UCSB, for instance, as workers or students?
Lots of questions; just as many throwing out self-promoting or unknowing easy answers.
You jut heard the figures - 60% of our 80,000 people in Santa Barbara are renters.
That means approximately 50,000 of them want to buy homes here who already live here .......for pennies.
They refuse to buy the condos on the market now for $300-400,000 and they refuse to sign up for the 15% of our housing that is already subsidized.
I suggest we bull-doze Alice Keck and Alameda Park right next to Mickey Flacks "big house" on the eastside and take the rest of the houses and apartments on East Micheltorena including St Francis Hospital and put in 15,000 new units ...... as a start.
Why should just a few vagrants get to have Alameda Park all to themselves when we could use that space more efficiently and put in thousands of units in the exact same spot and they could all walk to work.
This is an excellent smart growth start. And once we learn how successful this is, we can then put in a highrise on Dela Guerra Plaza to take care of the 30,000 commuters to Ventura so they can live and work in downtown and pay only pennies for their new homes.
Don't have the numbers for the North County commuters but once we see how successful the new Dela Guerra High Rise Condos is for them, then we can take over the former Levy property by the train station and put in more high rise condos for them.
And we can turn over all the former rental properties no longer used by the current renters to the homeless and the RV people who may not want to permanently buy into Santa Barbara themselves.
And everyone would be happy. Let's add this excellent solution to Plan Santa Barbara.
Or in the alternative, how about making the landlord sell the renters the apartments they already live in ....... for pennies.
Build it, and they will come. Santa Barbara's new motto. Bring your pennies.
And of course the architects and developers will also work for pennies. The whole idea of affordable housing plans is no one makes any money anywhere along the building stream scheme. No one. The whole thing is done for pennies.
Barack Obama will give us everything we want. If we want to house everyone in Santa Barbara who wants to live here, he will make it happen.
And it won't even cost us anything. Everything we want will happen. Only he can bring this change. We will take all the money we loaned ourselves for the Iraq War and give it all away to poor people and build them high rise condos in Santa Barbara. It is that easy.
Just read the ads in the Nespress Sunday real estate section. Tons of houses and condos all over this county for $100-200,000.
Gee, this does mean you might have to take a commuter bus to work in Santa Barbara, but you can buy these places if you start saving your pennies and dump your internet service and cell phones.
Hint: these houses are already affordable. No need to build even a single one more in Santa Barbara. You commute by bus; we are happy. Everyone wins.
Will the whiners who claim they can't afford to live in Santa Barbara please explain to us why that matters? You can save or commute by bus. These are not unreasonable choices.
You demanding we provide you housing is unreasonable. Stop whining and start commuting by bus or start saving.
The problem with "live within your limit"'s logic is that there's a third option between renting and commuting an hour to work in Santa Barbara -- giving up and taking a job somewhere else.
Which is fine, until we start having trouble hiring police officers and firefighters and teachers and the other middle income workers we need to thrive as a community.
I personally know two police officers who have taken jobs in the North County because it is more affordable, and the SB police department is always trying to fill vacancies. UCSB struggles to recruit and retain faculty because of the cost of living. And so on ...
Maybe subsidized housing isn't the answer.
But then again, neither is a community composed entirely of the retired, trust fund kids, illegal immigrants, and the homeless.
40 feet heigh limit is not "draconian". Give me a break.
It is a perfectly reasonable height limit for this town and recommended in the last General Plan to be dropped to at least this level. Even lower would be better. This allows four stories and that is plenty high.
Cernal is swimming against the tide of public policy and public opinion. No reason to guess why.
Hey, the biggest sockpuppet club in town is the one that argues against housing.
They only care about one thing: that their real estate prices go up.
They'll use every specious argument possible: that resources are limited (totally overlooking the vast environmental destruction, like, Lake Cachuma, that they're resource acquisition caused), that you can commute from elsewhere (totally overlooking the global warming and community fragmentation thereby caused), that you *should* pay their fellow property owners 70% of your gross salary... etc, etc, etc.
Frankly, they are `b'ankers with a w. There is a *huge* amount of developable space left on this South Coast and plentiful resources to develop it. We could easily support 1 million folks between the Rincon and Gaviota.
With green technology, water diverted from the wasteful Central Valley, trash incineration, electric vehicles.
But the vision-challenged `b'ankers have no clue as to how their own infrastructure got here; they think god or a Samala god laid it down for them. They couldn't do what Tom Storke did if they were given a billion dollars and explicit blueprints.
They're just nattering nabobs of NIMBYism.
Dave didn't "fail" with the acquarium/imax complex, he directed the compl;etion of the Environmental Impact Report which proved it to unworthy for Santa Barba, causing the developers to pull out. They actually tried to to have him fires with a personal hit campaign on front of Council
I am so tired of this hoary industry driven argument that we will not have "first responders" here when we need them if we don't keep building, building, building.
This is a bankrupt argument because there has not been a single project in this town dedicated only to "first responders" (absent the St Francis Hospital project and they are building this for themselves - this is not a community outreach project for "first responders".
Nor have I ever seen anywhere the numbers of "first responders" needed in varying disaster scenarios so a realistic amount of dedicated housing can be set aside for this group.
Guess what, if we smug people in Santa Barbara need service workers, it is our problem, not the city's problem. As if no one anywhere else on the planet has to go some where or even some distance to get needed services from time to time.
The only people still thrusting this "necessary first responders" building scheme is the building industry, trying to threaten and bully locals into building, building. building.
And never ever actually setting out a realistic game plan for "first responders" which gives the agenda away completely.
Because if we actually "solved" this issue, the builing industry would be lacking their primary smoke screen argument and have to admit they want to build, build, build just so they can make money and screw the rest of us.
WE (residents and voters) are doing just fine with what we have and when WE need to make changes, WE will make them. We will no longer let the building industry bully us with specious arguments lacking substance and buying the next city council.
Spend your efforts remodeling houses here, but forget any more major building projects. You will have to move; not us.
And we are willing to commute to Oxnard to get our hair cut and shop for groceries if this means WE get to keep our small town.
You need to use your imagination more because WE are and we can see the future living within our limited resources and are WE are willing to pay the price to keep things small and happy.
Bring on light rail. This is the ONLY solution for everyone.
And everyone today has to commute an hour if you can't live right next to your job. Everyone. So get used to this reality because clogging us up with more people and more traffic will easily make living here another unendurable mess.
Light rail -light rail - light rail. Forget your building industry song and dance. You filled our card years ago and we learned you smell bad and have two left feet.
Crowding and slums is what brought crime to this town. We did fine with fewer officers when there were fewer people here.
I personally know two police officers who like their Santa Barbara 3days on 4 days off schedule and don't mind commuting here at all.
Stop trying to bully with anecdote, building industry. We can go one on one with you, and it is time you knew that. That dog don't hunt anymore.
Santa Barbara did just fine without the middle class when it was primarily a tourist and retirement town. No body needs the middle class to "thrive". Just the opposite.
Plus the middle class is alive and well in this town due to the high number of public employee jobs. Tell us another building industry lie and see where it will get you.
Let's ask Dave Davis to come to the podium to tell us what he thinks!!
I must be getting old (the 1840s was SUCH a long time ago!)...I must admit however I like our bicycle riding, shorts-wearing police--but I say "let them walk!". After all, in my time we did...a few carriages and all those horses and cattle!
Adobe is very environmental. I wouldn't suggest four stories however...earthquakes here you know.
A few shoot-outs on Saturday night never hurt anybody...a one room jail.
Oh. And those sweet sounds of acoustic guitar, that strumming and picking (makes you want to Fandango!) music that we could actually hear without the vroom-vroom of the automobile and the boom box.
I say, a chicken in every pot and a troubadour on every corner.
If the NIMBY wants to go back to the future, before Lake Cachuma and all that, I say let's go all the way.
Besides, in any case I'd like to hear what Dave Davis has to say about rebuilding New Orleans! BRING ON DAVE DAVIS. He is so interesting. Bring on the poet of redevelopment.
Dear Readers:
Time for a thought experiment! Stay with me.
Santa Barbara has just been totally destroyed by an earthquake-tsunami-fire, total wipeout.
As in New Orleans with Katrina, we must rebuild our city. What do we do?
Blame Bush?
Call Dave?
Or make a plan and come up with some principles and get to work.
Where do we put the streets? Houses? Downtown? Merry-go-round?
I'm hoping to read your responses.
Don Jose...
Get it straight for once about the St. Francis project. It includes 34 market rate luxury units, plus the additional 12 units of development up the hill on Grand. This is an addition of 46 market rate condos in addition to the 81 set aside for the cottage employees--who have to move out and "sell" when they're no longer emplyed there. Housing security? No. Out of size and out of scale--most definitely. Given a free ride since day one? Absolutely.
After the Tsunami... I'd collect all the homes into gorgeous, green, `hanging garden' highrises, with some floors devoted to restaurants and stores.
Most of the land I'd make like it was pre-European contact. Schools would not be in the highrises, but out in the natural settings.
A bunch of `market plazas' where folks tend to gather for various community activities... farmers' markets, swap meets, outdoor performances, festivals... then surround the plazas with labyrinthine paseos of offices, small shops, studies, etc.
I'd bring UCSB back into town and link it physically with SBCC, and do the best to have the college students permeate a much larger area than they do now, so they aren't as ghettoized.
Lots of bikepaths and trails through the green (or, around here, brown) spaces. A huge tax on driving above a certain number of miles per day.
I would go to the street photo file at the Pearl Chase Society and pick every example of 1920's and 1930's gracious Spanish and Crafteman style architecture and do the whole city right next time.
Apartments should all look like Craftsman and Spanish garden courts. Great example in 300 block of West Anapamu. The city did small affordable apartments right almost 100 years ago.
And then they did massive ugly Soviet style shoe boxes right next to them. The 300 block West Anampamu tells the story of the good, bad, and ugly as Santa Barbara evolved over time.
Go back to the Good Old Days after the earthquake when those gracious buildings were built in both private and commercial spaces and you will need to look no further.
Forget the reed huts caulked with oil slicks. Don Jose, you don't like living on the ground with bugs and snails and I know this.
Nope, the Good Old Days started in the 1920's and 1930's when there was an intrinsic civic understanding of size, bulk, scale and style.
Waaaaaaaaa, I wanna go backwards.
Good morning Good Time Girl...yes.
You rang my bell!!
Ahh those days when the city's architectural inspiration flowed out of the Casa de la Guerra and El Paseo! Have you seen the Arlington as it was supposed to be? And the Plaza...all this time I have just been waiting for them to finish the 1920s Plaza restoration...waiting so long now.
I would have taken the Arlington Plan for the Performing Arts Center.
You have a very good point about the 300 block of West Anapamu.
Soviet style shoe boxes no! But look to the French architects for the original inspiration.
Who else wants re-envision Santa Barbara, to start over like New Orleans...where is Dave? He'll know the poem...
(storke chase/you had some good ideas...but those "hanging garden" highrises? Forget it! You must be either a Soviet or a FRANCAIS...
From what went on at last night's meeting of Allied Neighborhoods Association, the "coalition" just lost its most prominent spokesperson.
phooey don n, not all high rises have to be Soviet or Gallic
1920's or 1930's? Would you guys like a little lynching with that, or perhaps beating up a few arkies or okies? Or maybe just a nice pre-penicillin infection?
spread-out single family housing is an environmental disaster, and I have no doubt whatsoever that fantastic 10-stories that are Santa Barbaran could in fact be hanging gardens.
Listen to these whiners trying to turn back the clock. Santa Barbara has changed, and if you're going to live here you're going to need to learn to share. If the sight of people under 50 offends you, move. Make room for those of us who work for a living.
The good news is that most of the whining NIMBYs on this site will not be with us for much longer, therefore providing a plethora of housing options for those of us that actually still work. Each house will come pre-stocked with Viagra and Depends left over from the previous NIMBY owners.
The better news is we NIMBYs get to live in our over priced homes and listen to the wanna babies continue to snivel about how someday they want to grow up and be like us. Fortunately we will be around alot longer than they think, drawing out their rental agony into their old age. Their children of course will already have left for "a better life" in China, as polluted as it maybe. They'll be in a minority here because they don't speak Spanish and will spend most their money on gas and social security taxes to pay for our low density SFR IMBY retirements. Ahhh the good life...Nurse Ratchet! Where's my medicare paid for Viagra? I see the college girls are back in town...
I love the argument about housing the facts and figures quoted and the comments about how the time is coming. No one is entitled to housing you have to work for it if you are not given it, whats so wrong about the prices going up? I know two people who started with nothing they work hard and now own 3 homes each one owns a apartment building. They bought in parts of town most of the people who whine wouldnt consider, they work longer than most, they make their payments, dont spend the money on cars and dinners at the top places and they are gardners and did all this int he past 10 years. If you dont own a home maybe you arnet willing to sacrifice to get one.
And I like the coffee cat building...
Friends, I do believe Francois Coulon de Villiers who posted here was the famous one of whom we've been speaking...check out Francois on Wiki, there is only one in Santa Barbara...
Who is Francois Coulon de Villiers? Find out here:
http://www.geocities.com/BourbonStreet/Square/2320/devillier-page.html
If you dont own a home maybe you arnet willing to sacrifice to get one.
===========
Really? A crappy 1BR condo around here costs about $500,000. Do the math and tell us what the average working person should sacrifice to afford that.
Let’s see, if we go back to the good old days, like the 1920's, they built the Granada, 8 stories at 112 feet tall. They built the Balboa, 6 stories at 79 feet tall. The had the Potter (until 1921), 7 stories at 80 feet tall, the Carrillo Hotel 5 stories at 65 feet and oh yes they built the County Court House, 114 foot tower and a 5 story jail house at 68 feet tall. Also at that time period they had many 4 story buildings too, like the California, Faulding and other hotels and several commercial buildings. Your right! Let’s go back to the turn of the last century when they actually built tall buildings in Santa Barbara instead of this idiotic suburban low rise stick and stucco sprawl. Pearle Chase had good intention, weed out bad architecture and preserve the Spanish origins of our city. But the road to hell is paved with good intentions and that is where this ridiculous building height lunacy has brought us. What made this town unique in southern California, a dense downtown with multi-story buildings, building height limits have destroyed, so that small mined suburbanites could have the strip mall-shopping center experience downtown. What an incredible waste of a great city for such self centered, mediocre, feel good, non-sense.
shoreline shark due to the downturn in the market for the lower end probably 300k maybe less can get you a 1 bedroom condo in the area. I guess most people arnet willing to give up starbucks, cook at home, maybe not have cable, keep that old car for another 5 years, get a roomate etc. Instead most people complain its not affordable and want to still enjoy qll the little luxuries they think it should be easy. Its easy to say well it costs 500k for a crappy condo but those people shouldnt complain about renting then or move to a spot where they feel its affordable. There are people working six days a week at manual labor jobs who are buying those crappy condos, but in another 5 years they are buying a house. Its all about priorities and waht you are willing to give up if you dont make that much and want to own.
All of this talk about height v/s sprawl is good for our community. It seems like we want it all...a good environment, jobs, housing, good restaurants, but don't want to face the critical fact that population is growing. Oil is becoming expensive and will become scarce over the next 20 years. Think about how cities developed prior to the car...they were dense and had a mix of housing and services. The beautiful architecture of 20's and 30's was built to last, similar to cities in Europe. Placing tall, architecturally interesting buildings designed to last in downtown is good planning for the future, when people will not want to drive. To accommodate growth, we either need to go out or up - simple fact. We can either take land out of agricultural production and continue our automotive love affair at the expense of the environment, or start planning for a more sustainable future.
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