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productive farmland located outside urban growth boundaries. The city of San Jose <br />recently objected to a plan by the Morgan Hill School District to build a new high school <br />on a greenbelt separating San Jose from Morgan Hill. San Jose's objections: <br />• The proposed school site is zoned for agriculture and is on a greenbelt slated for <br />permanent protection. <br />• The school would require the extension of city services outside of the designated <br />urban service areas of both San Jose and Morgan Hill. This would violate growth <br />management policies established by San Jose to prevent sprawl. <br />• If San Jose is forced to extend services to the school site, the services will have to be <br />made available throughout the entire length of the Coyote Valley, thus stimulating - <br />new development pressures throughout the whole region.2~ <br />According to the Stanislaus County (Calif:) Farm Bureau, schools often act as a <br />catalyst for growth patterns that destroy farming 2s Once new subdivisions attracted by <br />schools move into an agricultural area and make it hard to farm, fanners start looking for <br />other uses for their land. Many of these uses conflict with farming. To survive <br />economically, farmers feel they must sell out to development. <br />The rift between school planning and general community planning has become so <br />great in California that State Assemblywoman Patricia Wiggins (D-Santa Rosa) has <br />sponsored legislation to address this problem. Her proposal would require school <br />districts to defer to local zoning laws in jurisdictions that have local comprehensive plans, <br />provided these plans contain provisions to accommodate the need to build or renovate <br />public schools. Cwrrent state law permits school districts to exempt themselves from <br />local land-use regulations with atwo-thirds vote of the school board. <br />In 1994, the South Carolina. General Assembly passed a 1aw24 requiring local <br />planning agencies to plan for growth in their respective jurisdictions. However, if a local <br />school district's plan conflicts with a local comprehensive plan - if, for eatample, a <br />proposed school site falls outside a jurisdiction's urban growth boundary - no <br />government authority can stop the project, even if the location makes no sense to the <br />community, according to the South Carolina Coastal Conservation League zs "Local <br />[school] districts are not obligated to work with local planners or other government <br />20 <br />