Friends of The Institute Golf Course are a bit closer to playing
the course after the Planning Commission gave the nod Tuesday night
to a controversial revised draft Environmental Impact Report,
recommending that the City Council certify it.
Friends of The Institute Golf Course are a bit closer to playing the course after the Planning Commission gave the nod Tuesday night to a controversial revised draft Environmental Impact Report, recommending that the City Council certify it.
Play on the Foothill Avenue course is forbidden until The Institute mitigates, or fixes, the effects of building the course before applying for permits or sufficiently protecting plants and wildlife or considering the water quality on the site and downstream. The city issued a Temporary Use Permit in late April allowing enough course maintanence to keep the greens healthy but would only allow play when all mitigations are complete.
Planning Manager Jim Rowe has wrestled with the environmental process since 1998, he said, and was happy to see the matter finally approaching the end.
“The commission made no substantive changes to the EIR,” Rowe said.
The Santa Clara Valley Audubon Society and Committee for Green Foothills have said they will sue the city and The Institute if they don’t comply, by mid-July, with a section of the Endangered Species Act protecting red-legged frogs from harassment, harm or destruction.
During the four-hour meeting the commission asked Rowe’s staff to clarify some points and referred others to the consulting hydrologist and biologist. The results, Rowe said, will be sent along to the council to consider at its special meeting scheduled for 7 p.m. Wednesday, June 9.
“Council will get the resolution (to approve) and draft on Monday (for Wednesday’s meeting),” he said, “and could be ready to approve it on June 16.”
Several state and federal agencies plus the Santa Clara Valley Water District worked to structure the EIR, forcing The Institute to reclaim a land buffer between Corralitos Creek, which runs through the course, and the greens plus a long list of other mitigations concerning irrigation, fertilization and mowing. The creek is home to the endangered California red-legged frog, famed as Mark Twain’s “Jumping Frog of Calaveras County.”
When the EIR turmoil is settled, The Institute plans to demolish the old Flying Lady Restaurant building on the 192-acre former Hill Country property and erect a Moorish-style building to serve as headquarters for The American Institute of Mathematics, a world-renowned Palo Alto-based research organization. AIM holds workshops and seminars for scientists and mathematicians who come together to work on problems of mutual interest.
AIM was the brainchild of Morgan Hill resident John Fry of Fry’s Electronics; he and several partners, under the name of Corralitos Creek LTD, own and operate Foothill Avenue course.
Details: www.aimath.org Carol Holzgrafe covers City Hall for The Times. She can be reached by e-mail at ch********@*************es.com or phoning (408) 779-4106 Ext. 201.
