October 25, 2007

City Council marks new territory with smoking ban

Strengthens jobs to housing triggers

By Carol Rosen
Editor

San Jose’s City Council continued its recent stance to stop rezoning commercial/industrial lands for housing. The unanimous vote approved planning staff recommendations and hopes the city has of rebuilding its revenue base.

Using six recommendations proposed by Mayor Chuck Reed and Council-members Madison Nguyen, Nancy Pyle and Forrest Williams, the council voted to revise the framework for rezoning commercial and light / heavy industrial lands. Although it has strayed once or twice from Reed’s plan to bolster jobs before housing, it appears from now on that this council won’t easily convert commercial and industrial land.

The proposal includes a recommendation to consider commercial or combined industrial and commercial uses for small parcels of industrial zoned land. Other proposals include rezoning commercial / industrial lands to support public infrastructure, which will be required to “offset the loss of light industrial or heavy industrial lands as recommended by city staff.”

Commercial parcels in degrading neighborhoods can be considered for conversion to housing, but only for affordable housing projects, schools and other public/semi-public uses. Projects for rezoning currently in the pipeline will not be dealt with until the spring, likely March or April. The 12 projects will be discussed together.

The vote follows last week’s description of retail sales tax revenues that are sharply lower than cities surrounding San Jose. In an effort to boost those revenues, the Planning Department’s Chief Development Officer Paul Krutko, recommended several actions including adopting a number of city sites as suitable for retail development; directing city staff to initiate General Plan and other efforts to prepare these sites for retail development; and directing the city’s staff to develop funding proposals for preparing these sites for development. All were unanimously adopted at the Oct. 16 session

Smoking ban
There was little dissention during the discussion to ban smoking in the city’s parks and around community centers and libraries with public golf courses added at a future date. The ban extends to sidewalks surrounding these areas and into cars parked or idling within the parks.

The ban was passed on a 10-1 vote with only Councilmember Pete Constant against the measure. The major reason he dissented was because he felt the city would be unable to enforce the measure.

“I don’t smoke and I don’t care for smoking,” Constant said. “But I think this ordinance is a bad idea. Smoking out in the open is the best place for it and it’s [currently] not allowed in children’s or in eating areas.

“Nothing in the policy insures that any rangers and police officers can enforce it. I think I can argue that there’s just as much danger from lighting a BBQ as someone smoking,” he added.

But other council members were unswayed. They brought up incidents of loitering and littering. Council member Sam Liccardo said he thought that people within the park would enforce the ban. Other large California cities—San Francisco, San Diego and Los Angeles—already have banned smoking in their parks.

"A child should have the ability to play in a smoke-free environment," said Councilman Pierluigi Oliverio. "They may not have a back yard to play in."

About eight public speakers also were for the ban, including one throat cancer survivor who smoked for 15 years. Another suggested an even stronger ban because “second hand smoke is deadly.”

Sister City Program
Among the other topics was a lengthy discussion of San Jose’s Sister City Program, which Councilmember Nancy Pyle said is bringing businesses to the area. For example, she said officials from Oulu, Finland are bringing 12 new companies to San Jose and the city of Fraunhofer, Germany brought U.S. Digital Media Center to North San Jose.

However, after a number of motions and amendments to those motions, the council divided the proposal asking city staff to work with Sister City programs within San Jose to amend the guidelines to include consideration of a new affiliation only after that city has been established an economic partnership. This will come back to the council on Nov. 20.

The remaining five recommendations will be pursued now. These include participation with the Bay Area Council’s 2007 Memorandum of cooperation with the Shanghai-Hong Kong Council for the promotion and development of Yangtze. It also directs the staff to pursue selected relationships as informal working relationships or under formal economic partnership agreements.