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Home Resource Center In the News Home Greenbelt Alliance in the News |
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Greenbelt Alliance In the News
August 23, 2002 San Jose snubs SV communities
Coyote Valley taskforce omits MH and other neighbors By KATE WOODS, Pinnacle Staff Writer San Jose city officials have angered officials in communities to the
south by excluding them from a taskforce designed to plan development
in the Coyote Valley. On Tuesday, the San Jose City Council set up a 20-member panel to set guidelines for growth in city's last open space, the thousands of acres between the southern reaches of the city and Morgan Hill. After a year of lawsuits over what Salinas, Hollister and many communities to the south felt was a flawed EIR on Cisco System's planned high-tech campus in the valley, many leaders thought San Jose had signaled a new era of regional planning cooperation. The taskforce makeup, however, indicates to them that is not the case.
Morgan Hill Mayor Dennis Kennedy believes that a general feeling of being
snubbed is rippling throughout the South Valley. "They probably wouldn't like our opinion," is the reason Kennedy speculated that a representative from Morgan Hill was not included. "It's unfortunate they chose not to include their neighboring city. Whatever is built in Coyote Valley will have a greater impact on Morgan Hill and all the communities to the south than it will in the north." "There's no surprise here," added San Benito Planning Director
Rob Mendiola. "San Jose has total disregard for its neighbors in
the region. It's neither good land-use planning nor good public policy." The Coyote Valley Specific Plan Task Force will include three San Jose
council members, including Mayor Ron Gonzales, four developers, and two
labor union leaders - but no advocates for transportation or affordable
housing, and no representatives from communities south of the valley.
It includes only one environmental advocate. For the next three years
the group will look closely at how to create a new city that will include
a bustling business park, a major power plant and more than 25,000 new
homes. The group is heavily pro-development, critics say, and includes Steve
Schott Jr., president of the high-end Award and Citation Homes; Steve
Speno, head of Cisco Systems; and Dan Hancock of Shapell Industries, another
subdivision developer. Schott's company is suing San Benito County's LAFCO
for $56 million for denying annexation for its planned 677-home development,
despite well-publicized problems with Hollister's sewage treatment plant. "In a way, you couldn't have sent a stronger signal that the conservation
community is not wanted in this," said Craig Breon, Executive Director
of the Santa Clara Valley Audubon Society. "There are gaping holes
in this taskforce." Breon and others from environmental groups such
as the Greenbelt Alliance have been following the Coyote Valley issue
closely, especially since Cisco System's proposal to develop was announced
three years ago. The resulting lawsuits from neighboring communities prompted
affected cities - including San Jose - to form a regional planning taskforce,
but not one member of that group was included on the new committee. Breon said he was surprised that Gonzales would ignore the group after having attended the regional meetings. "The mayor made all these statements about cooperative regional planning for the greater good, blah, blah," Breon said. "Everyone pretended to communicate." Cisco's plan was put on hold as the economy has faltered. The new taskforce
has been challenged to come up with a workable plan for development in
the interim. In a memo Gonzales sent to the council Friday, he reiterated guidelines
previously established by the council, which include making way for 50,000
jobs in northern Coyote Valley and 25,000 homes in the central part of
it. "We know that the mayor is going to support the developers,"
said Breon. "I'm assuming the mayor's office is going to dictate
the outcome of this like he does on so many issues. Where is the AMBAG
rep, where is the San Benito rep?" A spokesman for the mayor said that despite lawsuits challenging the
Coyote EIR, which said most of the infrastructure impacts of development
would be felt to the north, the taskforce was right to focus on San Jose-based
membership. "Remember, the Coyote Valley is in San Jose," said Dave Vossbrink,
communications director for Gonzales. "Whatever happens there is
mostly felt in San Jose. I'm not saying that there won't be impacts, but
there may not be as much as people think there will be." Vossbrink
said that since developers will be the ones building in Coyote, they should
be represented on the panel. He said they would also provide expertise
in "diverse housing infrastructure," a notion at which Breon
scoffed. "None of those developers have experience in building affordable
housing," said Breon. Breon said that all the local environmental
groups, including the Audubon Society, the Sierra Club, the Committee
for Green Foothills (of Palo Alto) and the Greenbelt Alliance, asked to
be represented on the panel. They were turned down. Mayor Gonzales and San Jose Councilman Forrest Williams made the final
picks for the taskforce. Breon also said that placement of the Silicon Valley Conservation Council
on the panel was merely to "put a green spin on the plan." The
fledgling conservation council was created and funded by Cisco Systems
and two developers. The Santa Clara Open Space Authority, also chosen
by the Mayor and Williams, is not an advocacy group but rather a governmental
agency. The group likely will become a recipient of some of the land to
be preserved south of the valley. Anne Crealock, spokeswoman for the Greenbelt Alliance, also disagreed
with the makeup on the panel. "I think a lot of people are feeling
excluded from the process," she said. "That's why we're including
everyone in ours." The Greenbelt Alliance has launched its own Coyote Valley Visioning Project,
a 10-month think-tank to design a smart-growth plan for Coyote Valley.
Their project includes 43 representative stakeholders - urban planners,
elected officials, environmentalists, affordable housing advocates, transportation
experts and landowners alike. Crealock hopes the San Jose taskforce will
listen to their ideas. "They'd be silly not to," she said. "It'll look pretty
badly if their taskforce doesn't take into account what we find. It would
benefit them." Kennedy wasn't as hopeful. "I'm trying to be somewhat tactful," said Kennedy. "San Jose wants to make sure they don't lose control of development in Coyote Valley."
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