July 27, 2006

All sides agree that more San Jose parks are needed

But developers, city differ on where money will come from

By Carol Rosen
Staff Writer

It seems that everyone agrees that San Jose needs more park and recreation areas, but everyone has a different way to go about it.

Almaden Meadows Park offers natural beauty at the intersection of Camden and Meridian.

The San Jose Department of Parks, Recreation and Neighborhood Services currently is reevaluating its practices to update the ordinance applying to land decisions on fees paid when large new developments are built.

The original ordinance, called the Parkland Dedication Ordinance or PDO, was adopted in 1988. In 1992 it was revised to include condos and townhouses under the Parkland Impact Ordinance (PIO). The last significant revisions were made in 1998.

Developers are required to set aside land or pay fees for park development. Currently, the fees are based on 70 percent of 2001 land values, which the Parks Commission and PRNS feels isn’t enough to meet today’s cost of developing parks.

PRNS currently is attempting to bring the ordinance up to today’s needs and requirements including adjusting it to meet current land values.

”We need to adjust the fees to bring land values up to date,” said Helen Chapman, the chair of the all-volunteer Parks Commission. “The adjustment would put us in the right direction. If we don’t do it, we will fall behind because we can’t keep up with costs as provided in the PDO/PIO.”

On July 19, the Parks Commission and PRNS began a series of meetings to develop input from all the groups involved in the ordinance. This includes San Jose residents, the San Jose/Silicon Valley Chamber of Commerce, the Home Builders Association and developers in general.

They will hold a second public forum next Wednesday, Aug. 2 at City Hall in Room W120 at 6:30 p.m. Dates are not yet set for additional meetings for stakeholders such as the HBA, the Chamber and Strong Neighborhood Initiative community groups. While the public will be invited, the later meetings are designed to allow the stakeholder groups to air their concerns.

“We want to make sure we get to hear all the groups so that any ideas can be added to our report,” said Matt Cano, division manager for the PRNS Community Facilities Division. “We’re planning for a series of meetings, but haven’t yet nailed down the schedule yet,” he added.

Other meetings include a joint study session with planning and the Parks and Recreation Commission, a housing advisory commission presentation and an SNI project area committee meeting.

In September, Cano and his group plan to get back with PRNS, the Planning Department and the Housing Commission before devising their final plan, which will be presented to the City Council in late October for approval.

Complaints
While the situation may seem straight forward, there are a lot of concerns from the different groups involved. Naturally, the developers and the HBA would prefer to keep their costs down, so they are concerned about adjusting the developer fees to reflect 2005 land values. The Parks Commission thinks there is too little parkland in the city, so they want to see bigger and better parks. Both agree that park maintenance is a top priority.

Several things must happen before the HBA buys into a new plan, said Beverly Bryant, executive director of the Southern Division of HBA of Northern California. Before any fund increases, the City Council must accept a strategic plan for park development. Included in that would be what she called a “greenprint” or an accurate and fair listing of all the city’s parkland, which she claimed hasn’t been updated since the year 2000.

San Jose’s Chamber of Commerce also is concerned that the green print hasn’t been updated, said Bob Hines, vice president of policy and communications. He expressed concern that the Guadalupe River Park and park trails have not been integrated into the greenprint.

PRNS needs to develop a “strategic plan to identify the funding sources for maintenance and capitalization for park acquisition,” he said. Chamber businesses “don’t want resources tied into a parks plan with a bad foundation. We need to ensure where the resources are being invested, that they are adequately invested and how much is invested in the future. Developers and builders want to invest but they also want to ensure that a basic plan is in place,” he said.

Bryant said developers are concerned about PRNS management, especially after an audit found unused funds of $39 million, with another $13 million beyond that. The money is part of a trust developers paid into to buy land and develop parks.

Maintenance
Developers are also concerned, Bryant said, about park maintenance and the city’s ability to maintain the parks. Why would developers want to pay into a fund when the city can’t seem to maintain the parks already in existence, she questioned.

For example, “I saw a city park recently that was not maintained properly, it was going to seed and the grass was dried out from a lack of watering,” she said.

Ironically, the Parks Commission has a similar concern. “I’m expressly concerned there are not enough parks being built and maintained at a rate that should be a goal for the tenth largest city in the country,” said Chapman.

She blamed the lack of maintenance on budget scalping that began after the dot.com bust when city coffers dried up. With the exception of this year, the PRNS budget has been drastically cut so that full time park employees now number 660. “ San Jose has a .73 ratio of park employees per 1,000 people.

Twenty-six U.S. cities are ahead in their park employee percentages and only four have larger populations than San Jose. Honolulu, for example, with a population of nearly 900,000 people has 700 employees or .78 employees per 1,000 people. Fresno, with just about half of San Jose’s population has 410 employees or about .90 employees per 1,000 people. San Francisco, with a population of 744,230, has 1,077 park employees or about 1.45 per 1000 people,” she said.

In the past, she said, the city put a lower priority on parks than other budgetary needs. But keeping the PRNS budget up is important to the city’s quality of life.

“We need to look at parks and recreation as a livable service that’s part of health and safety as much as the fire, police and emergency services development. Parks [budget] should be brought up to that level of importance,” Chapman told the Times.

One more concern
A new concern for PRNS and for developers has to do with storm runoff. The Water District recently passed an ordinance that San Jose is expected to comply to. The goal is to minimize the amount of drainage that goes to the bay. PRNS’ Cano said he expects this area to be part of the evaluation.

Currently, developers are not paid to put in a grassy field for the rainwater to seep into, said Cano. Putting in fields, instead of paved parking lots, creates a dual use for land, he noted. Part of the evaluation would include offering tax credits of 50 percent to developers to put in fields rather than parking lots in order to comply with the ordinance.

Developers like the idea, according to Mike Sheehy, vice president of Ruth and Going. “Parks seem to be a logical place to treat water, and I think the idea should be encouraged on a regular basis.”

However, the city will not pay to maintain these fields, he said, so the cost will be passed on to others, including homeowners or homeowner associations. “Protecting our creeks from pollution is very important, but the city needs to come up with a mechanism to put this into place. Developers are trying to figure out how to manage this new regulation, especially if the city budget or a citywide special assessment isn’t feasible,” he added.

“I don’t think developers have a problem with the concept, it’s more with the on-going maintenance and how it gets done,” Sheehy said. He would like to see a plan in place. In addition, most developers worry that a HOA assessment or some sort of local dues to pay for the upkeep might send potential buyers away.

The Public
Larry Ames, who lives in District 6, attended the July 19 meeting. One of about 25 San Jose residents at the meeting, he’s concerned about park taxes and usage. He lives near Bramhall Park.

“We paid park fees when we bought a house in Willow Glen,” he said, and again through Measure P, a park development bond of $228 million passed in November 2000.

More people are now coming to the park from new and in-fill housing around the area and from other districts looking for parks in which to play or picnic. Ames’ concern stems from this. He claims he’s paying for the park twice—through his mortgage when he bought the house and through Measure P—but his portion of the park is shrinking due to the influx of residents. If the city has to pass another bond measure, Ames will be paying three times for the park.

Some numbers
San Jose is a city of more than 900,000 people in an area that is 111,910 square miles. Of that area, 11,854 acres (according to the Trust for Public Land) are given to parkland, but this figure includes county parks within the city limits. Of the nearly 12,000-acre total, 9,046 acres (according to PRNS figures) are county lands and 3,660 are city owned.

On the other hand, and according to figures from the Trust for Public Land, Fresno, with a population of 457, 719 or about half San Jose’s population offers its residents 49 soccer fields while San Jose offers only one.

While all participants credit the parks commissioners with hard work and praise the job the current people are doing, each brings specific agendas to the table. Working to ensure compromises to make the situation work for everyone may be difficult but both the parks commission and PRNS appear to be committed to the challenge.