November 10, 2005

Coyote Valley committee on schedule after brief hiatus

Environmentalists worried about cancellation of meetings

By Sheila Sanchez
Staff Writer

Environmental groups breathed a sigh of relief this week after learning that city planners had resumed meetings of a Coyote Valley advisory committee.

The meetings of the Coyote Valley Technical Advisory Committee (TAC) were cancelled last month when city officials said they wanted time to write the project’s draft development plan, which was tentatively set to be released in January. City staffers also said they didn’t want to hold meetings when they didn’t have anything new to report to committee members.

The committee is an arm to the city’s Coyote Valley Task Force made up of 20 public and private members. Under the leadership of Mayor Ron Gonzales and Councilman Forrest Williams, it was directed to guide the preparation of a comprehensive and practical plan for the future of Coyote Valley.

City officials also said they never permanently cancelled the meetings but put them on hold to set up a separate focus group for environmental agencies concerned about the project to give them access to planning staff and project consultants.

“We’re creating opportunities for direct communication and we’ve been doing that with all other stakeholders as well,” said San Jose’s Deputy Planning Director Laurel Prevetti. “We now have content for the technical committee to review so we’re restarting those meetings. We only missed one or two meetings. This was very temporary.”

Williams said the TAC meetings were also temporarily discontinued to minimize duplication of effort as the Coyote Valley planning team was continuing to hold sub-committee and focus group meetings on specialized areas of study such as schools, transportation, affordable housing, parks and trails, medical services, etc. The forums, which several of the TAC members participate in, are the primary vehicles for the review of technical information pertaining to these subject areas. He, too, denied the cancellation of the meetings was a way to skirt or hasten the planning process.

“This is not too fast. It’s not going to be done tomorrow or the next day. It's going to take a while to eventually build out," Williams said. "We have specific set of vision statements that we must follow. They (council members) didn't tell us to go develop the greenbelt. We were given direction and we're trying to fulfill it within the framework that was given to us by the council.”

On Nov. 2, Susan Walsh, the city’s senior planner, sent Brian Schmidt, Santa Clara County legislative advocate for the Committee for Green Foothills and other environmentalists, an e-mail announcing that the TAC meetings would resume with the next one scheduled for 3 p.m., Nov. 30, at City Hall, 200 E. Santa Clara St., room 332, on the third floor in the Tower Building.

Schmidt said environmental groups were concerned that their voices would be silenced if the meetings were cancelled, as they’re the only opportunity they have to give input. Many said they considered the Coyote Valley Task Force meetings restrictive, only giving them two minutes to speak.

“I usually don’t get any type of response to my concerns (voiced to the task force),” Schmidt said.

Coyote Valley is the last piece of undeveloped rural land in the city. Experts are saying its development could cost between $600 and $800 million. The plan calls for a community of more than 50,000 jobs, and at least 25,000 homes that would house about 100,000 people.

Environmentalists believe the city is moving too quickly to develop Coyote Valley. They also charge that the city no longer has a valid reason to plan the expansion into the reserve as a Cisco Systems project trying to build a campus of about 20,000 jobs five years ago in the north Coyote Valley has been cancelled.

“We have a glut of commercial real estate right now in San Jose. We have millions of square feet available. We see no need to just add to that glut,” Schmidt said. “Our counter argument is that there are other places to grow in San Jose… Only after you can’t handle any more growth in the city should you consider taking up prime farmland and losing it.”

Environmentalists also fear the city is not providing enough housing at full build out, accentuating the valley’s housing crisis, citing county ratios that indicate the project would need one house for every 1.7 full-time jobs. The Coyote Valley project, they claim, will not meet that ratio. Schmidt said the city would need to create more than 35,000 homes to meet the housing demand.

Brenda Torres-Barreto, executive director of the Santa Clara Valley Audubon Society, said, “We need to make sure there’s a real need for this type of development. We have empty spaces in the city that haven’t been filled by companies because of the economy. It doesn’t make sense for anyone to create more spaces. We’re strongly advocating the development of the city first. This is not a sustainable development.”

Similarly Melissa Hippard, director of the Loma Prieta Chapter of the Sierra Club covering Santa Clara, San Mateo and San Benito counties, said plans to develop Coyote Valley have been in the works for the last three decades without sustainability and impacts to existing infrastructure.

The chapter has always been involved in protecting the land, as it strongly believes there are ample infill opportunities within the city to address residential, commercial and industrial needs, Hippard said.

“Greenfield development on agricultural natural open space is not necessary,” Hippard said. “It’s to be avoided at all costs … we need to conserve this land as much as possible.”

David Vossbrink, a spokesman for San Jose Mayor Ron Gonzales, denied city officials were rushing through the planning process indicating nearly four years have been spent studying, analyzing and considering all options to properly develop the valley.

“This has been the most thorough, exhaustive, complete and participatory planning process that San Jose has ever taken,” Vossbrink said. “There’s nothing rushed about it.”

Prevetti said the San Jose City Council voted to begin planning the development of Coyote Valley in August of 2002 during the downturn in the economy because it would be a time when outside pressures to develop would not be as great.

“We’re not rushing the planning process. This has been a very thoughtful and community-focused planning effort. We’ve done extensive outreach, more than any other planning effort that I can remember in my 20 years with the city,” Prevetti said. “The question of why now, that was a decision that the council made. There was a feeling that in the down economy it was the best time to do the land-use planning without the pressure from builders to capture a hot market.

Vossbrink added: “The best time to do a plan is when you don’t have pressure to develop. During the boom time there was a great deal of pressure to develop almost everything. When the recession hit we started the planning process so that we could actually be thoughtful and take our time to do a complete planning process that involved all the stakeholders along the way.”

The Coyote Valley Specific Plan Task Force meeting is at 5:30 p.m. Nov. 14 in the conference room in the City Hall wing. The next TAC meeting is scheduled for 3 p.m. Nov. 30 at City Hall, 200 E. Santa Clara St., room 332, on the third floor in the Tower Building. For more information please log on to www.sanjoseca.gov/coyote valley.