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There are very few non-Williamson Act contracted <br />properties of equivalent size, or groups of parcels <br />totalling this size, which remain available for <br />similar-type development in this area of the City. <br />The project site has unique features such as its <br />bearing a portion of the development of the Bernal <br />Avenue extension, its adding to neighborhood park <br />land in an area presently under-served with <br />improved parkland, the "looping" of several local <br />streets which are presently overly long de facto <br />culs-de-sac, and the installation of a <br />long-designated north-south major collector street. <br />Development for the proposed purposes on <br />non-contracted land would not provide any of the <br />above benefits. As this site is contiguous to <br />existing development and a logical extension of it, <br />no development on non-contracted lands could <br />provide any more contiguous pattern of development; <br />indeed, in many circumstances, such development <br />would be in a less contiguous pattern of <br />development. <br />b. Finding that Cancellation is in the Public Interest <br />Cancellation of the Agreement shall be found by your Council <br />to be in the public interest only if you can make the <br />following two findings: <br />1. That other public concerns substantially outweigh <br />the objectives of the Williamson Act. <br />The relevant objectives of the Williamson Act are, <br />in summary, as follows: (1) preservation of limited <br />agricultural land to maintain the agricultural <br />economy of the state and adequate food for the <br />future; {2) discouragement of premature and <br />unnecessary conversion of agricultural land to <br />urban uses benefits urban dwellers as it <br />discourages discontiguous patterns of development <br />which increase costs of community services; and (3) <br />agricultural lands have value as open space, <br />constituting an important physical, social, <br />esthetic, and economic asset to existing and <br />pending urban developments. <br />The objectives as they relate to this project are <br />not overwhelmingly significant. The benefits of <br />the proposed project clearly offset each of the <br />relevant objectives. The project will construct, <br />at no expense to existing urban dwellers, portions <br />of several needed thoroughfares. It will add <br />housing consistent with the City's growth <br />management plan and to off-set the jobs/housing <br />SR:86:418 <br />