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Latest News
Over 200 people attended UCLA Professor Donald Shoup’s presentation on "The High Cost of Free Parking" in San Jose on February 24. Deemed a “parking rock star” by the Wall Street Journal, Shoup talked about how free parking distorts urban design, damages the urban economy, and harms the environment. Greenbelt Alliance organized the standing-room-only event which highlighted parking as perhaps one of the most contentious and least understood land-use issues facing cities today. Read Silicon Valley Bicycle Coalition's synopsis of the event and check out Donald Shoup's PowerPoint presentation [PDF]. Development threat for Sargent Ranch eases For close to a decade, Greenbelt Alliance and allies have been keeping an eye on Sargent Ranch and the many attempts by a San Diego-based land developer to turn 6,500 acres of ranchlands and wildlife habitat into luxury homes and golf courses. Situated just south of Gilroy and west of Highway 101, Sargent Ranch has been the subject of some shady land-use proposals, most notably of which was the partnership between Wayne Pierce, the principal of Sargent Ranch LLC, and a faction of the Amah Mutsun Native American Tribe. The Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors has been a good steward of the land, rebuffing Pierce’s attempts to develop on multiple occasions. However, Pierce pursued a loophole that would circumvent county land-use policies. Partnership with a local tribe seeking federal recognition would have led to Sargent Ranch being designated as tribal land, and tribal lands are exempt from state and local environmental and planning laws. In the end, forged tribal papers and Pierce’s questionable dealings with investors have led to bankruptcy. Greenbelt Alliance supports the Santa Clara County General Plan policies that promote development only within existing urban areas.Success! Gilroy's egregious land grab averted In Southern Santa Clara County, Gilroy was engaged in some questionable land-use planning by pursuing the annexation of over 600 acres of natural open space, working farms, and rangelands. This is completely unnecessary considering the plentiful opportunities for redevelopment of vacant and underutilized parcels closer to Gilroy’s downtown and Caltrain station. Greenbelt Alliance opposed these annexations, and together with the Committee for Green Foothills and local residents, swayed the Council to turn down these development proposals. Read our letter here. Campaigns The City of San Jose has kicked off the update of its General Plan—the City's blueprint for growth over the long term. The Envision San Jose General Plan update is an opportunity for San Jose to decide together how best to grow in a changing world over the next several decades. Greenbelt Alliance has a seat on the 37-member Task Force making suggestions for how to improve the 2020 General Plan. North San Jose is home to more than 1,200 of the world’s best-known technology companies, including eBay. But North San Jose is showing its age, with an outdated land-use pattern that does not reflect the innovation and creativity one might expect from Silicon Valley. Instead, North San Jose is full of two- and three-story campus industrial buildings surrounded by vast parking lots, connected by wide streets that are built for speeding cars. Diridon has the potential to be a world-class transit hub. Already served by Caltrain, Amtrak, ACE and VTA’s light rail, plans are in place to add BART and high-speed rail. This station can be the catalyst that breathes new life into a city often viewed as Silicon Valley’s bedroom community. The City of Mountain View has kicked off the update of its General Plan—the City's blueprint for growth over the long term. The process will include an update of the Housing Element, an important part of any city’s general plan. This provides an opportunity to address both economic issues and environmental change. Morgan Hill has an Urban Growth Boundary that protects the land outside the city from development for 20 years, but speculators who own land outside the line have proposed an Urban Limit Line to expand the existing boundary and open protected land up to development. In the planning of Coyote Valley, 6,800 acres of farmland at the southern edge of San Jose, Greenbelt Alliance continues to advocate for smart growth policies developed from our report Getting It Right: Preventing Sprawl in Coyote Valley. Greenbelt Alliance also has been advocating that the triggers for development should not be relaxed to accommodate housing before jobs. It is in San Jose’s best interest to focus on the city-wide General Plan update and the redevelopment of North San Jose prior to making any further decisions on the development of this fertile valley west of Highway 101. For all press coverage, visit our clippings page. For individual campaigns, see list at left. Also, learn about this region's sustainable developments endorsed by Greenbelt Alliance. 10/5/09 City: Plan for housing rebound 8/29/09 Letter to the Editor: Get a design for success |
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