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Greenbelt Alliance In the News

June 21, 2002

660 Approved

Gilroy council adds agricultural preserve to development wish list

By a vote of 5-2, the Gilroy City Council last Thursday night approved its Updated General Plan-a plan that calls for the expansion of the city's boundaries within the next 20 years to include the 664 acres of agricultural preserve land behind the Gilroy Premium Outlets.

Despite months of testimony from concerned citizens and environmental groups over the importance of saving the prime farmland, the council thought it was best to leave the door open for future annexation of the area that they feel is vital for the city's economic viability and future attractiveness to business development.

"All we are doing is just drawing a line for generic development in the area," said Gilroy Mayor Tom Springer when asked about the strong opposition to future development on the site. "This isn't going to happen tomorrow. And to mitigate it is so expensive that it may never happen. But if it does, we needed to add it to the updated plan now.

"The people who are running around saying the sky is falling are Chicken Littles," he added. "You'd think that God returned and it was the end of the world because of what we have done."

According to the city, setting aside land for a future industrial complex makes the city more attractive, expands its business base and increases tax revenues.

"This area is important for our economic vitality," said Gilroy Planning Division Manager Bill Faus.

"You need a sufficient number of acres to be economically competitive with Silicon Valley. And you entice developers with a superior inventory-an amount that gives us the edge over other communities in the region."

The decision became controversial because the citizens who spent more than a year updating the city's general plan had opposed adding farmland east of the outlets into city domain. In the city's current general plan there are 1,000 acres available for development. With the updated plan, the city has 1,500 undeveloped acres. The 660 has a net acreage of 430 because 234 of them will be used for drainage and open space improvements.

The two dissenting city council members last Thursday were Charles Morales and Peter Arellano. Both expressed their concerns that developers had heavily influenced the council. In addition, council member Roland Velasco-although he voted in favor of the updated plan-expressed concern about the democratic process when he criticized the Mayor for the way some members of the public-most of them pro open space speakers-were subjected to long cross-examinations while at the podium.

"I believe that the citizens' input on this issue was disregarded and ignored," said Morales. "As elected officials, we need to listen to our constituents. And I think the process violated adherence to that."

Representatives from the Audubon Society, Greenbelt Alliance, and Save Open Space were among those who declared their opposition to development on "the 660."

"Bringing the 660 into the planning boundary is about politics, not planning," said Anne Crealock, South Bay field representative for Greenbelt Alliance. "Even without the 660, more than half of the planning area is undeveloped-paving over prime farmland in the county's agriculture preserve is completely unnecessary."

But Springer isn't buying into Greenbelt Alliance philosophy and questions its objectives.
"They never once picked up the phone and called me about this issue," said Springer. "What they are saying is bordering on hysterical. They had a press conference saying that garlic grows on this land-it does not. And the land that they are advocating for development is further away from city hall and goes on the San Martin Greenbelt. This group also accepted $3 million from Cisco not to oppose Cisco anymore. Read it. It was in the Mercury News."

The City of Gilroy has been updating its General Plan since 1997. The process was substantially delayed when the General Plan Update Committee requested that part of the agricultural preserve be included for campus industrial development.

At the request of the city council, additional studies were carried out in order to assess the feasibility of developing the 660. Fourteen people own the 660 acres. The site yields three crops a year and is farmed continuously.

According to American Farmland Trust, the United States loses 1 million acres of farmland each year to development.

While this is the first step in a long process that would lead to the site's development, a long list of others would need to follow before businesses would operate from the 660.

According to Faus, the next step would be to develop a specific plan for the site. Then it would have to be included within the city's urban service line, which would require LAFCO improvement.

"After that, it would be annexed and you'd have phasing plans followed by development plans and construction," said Faus. "There won't be any bulldozers out there for a long time."

In December 2001 Santa Clara County LAFCO, which oversees all boundary changes in the county, became involved in the controversy. The LAFCO commission voted 4-1 to send a letter to the City of Gilroy and a representative to Gilroy hearings in order to answer questions and explain how the inclusion of the 660 into the planning boundary would likely violate LAFCO policies.

"Developing this farmland is a bad deal for Gilroy residents. It means more traffic, more taxes, and it makes it harder for the rest of Gilroy's farmers to keep farming," said Crealock. "Do we really want to start trading our county's agricultural preserve for sprawling development and traffic?"

When asked if the council's vote brings and end to the debate, Crealock said, "Absolutely not. This vote only brings an end to one chapter of the book. At this point the environmental community is reviewing all of its options."

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