In a move that
’s reminiscent of when the soon-to-be-opened Metcalf power plant
was forced upon the South Bay, and the current
BART-extension-at-any-price attitude, San Jose Mayor Ron Gonzales
and San Jose City Councilman Forrest Williams have concocted a plan
to remove some of the “triggers” that must occur
before Coyote Valley development can occur.
In a move that’s reminiscent of when the soon-to-be-opened Metcalf power plant was forced upon the South Bay, and the current BART-extension-at-any-price attitude, San Jose Mayor Ron Gonzales and San Jose City Councilman Forrest Williams have concocted a plan to remove some of the “triggers” that must occur before Coyote Valley development can occur.
For a good number of years, the City of San Jose has promised that five things must occur before Coyote Valley can be developed:
n 5,000 new jobs in Coyote Valley
n Stable financial outlook for City of San Jose
n Five-year economic forecast projecting balanced budgets or surplus each year
n Financial stability in fiscal relationship with state
n Returning police, fire and library services to 1993 levels
These commonsense promises, made to the residents of San Jose and to the greater region, were put in place to ensure that one of the last remaining rural areas in San Jose would not be developed until it made sound economic and good planning sense. These triggers assured current San Jose residents that the city would not expand its infrastructure and service commitments by developing a new area before current residents’ service levels were restored.
That only makes sense: How can the city justify taking on 80,000 new residents, building miles of new water lines, sewer pipes, roads and drainage ditches, protect them with police, paramedic and fire services, and provide quality of life measures like libraries and parks when it’s not adequately meeting the needs of current residents? It’s obvious it cannot, and it should not. Existing neighborhood groups in San Jose need to let Mayor Gonzales and others on the council know of their concerns.
But there is economic pressure to build homes and time pressure on Gonzales to build a legacy. BART and major league baseball are looking more iffy by the minute. What’s a termed-out mayor to do? Develop Coyote Valley, apparently. And home builders are worried that when Gonzales leaves office they might not have as much influence with the new mayor.
While there’s pressure to build homes, there is absolutely no pressure to build industrial or office space. Although the Bay Area housing market remains inexplicably strong, the Bay Area commercial real estate market is in a tailspin. Companies are routinely moving to better office space for less money to take advantage of the high vacacy rates in commercial real estate.
The home-building has particular interest here in Morgan Hill because the school district boundaries extend to south San Jose. Local schools say talks have been going slow with housing developers as to size and number of school sites in Coyote Valley. At the same time, thanks to unfunded federal mandates and to the chronic state budget crisis, local governments are facing fiscal crises, and San Jose is no different. It has cut its budget drastically for the last three years, is struggling to close a $58 million deficit, and even Gonzales admits that at least two more years of cuts are ahead.
So, with his second term ending in 2006, we shouldn’t be surprised that Gonzales is moving to drop the two most difficult triggers: a balanced or surplus budget outlook, and the number of new jobs in Coyote Valley.
We shouldn’t be surprised, but we should be outraged. And let’s hope that environmentalists, who were counting on those triggers to keep Coyote Valley development a back-burner issue, are equally alarmed.
This move raises the alert level on Coyote Valley. We cannot be complacent any longer. We cannot console ourselves that it’s a problem that’s decades away.
If Gonzales and Williams are successful in this ill-advised plan, we can most likely forget any thoughtful, smart-planning-driven design for Coyote Valley. Instead, we’ll have piecemeal development driven by home developers guided by their bottom lines, not the quality of life for South Valley or the South Bay.
We’re not sure why Gonzales and Williams concocted this harebrained scheme, and quite frankly, we’re not sure we care. But we do care deeply about South Valley’s quality of life, and that’s why we’re urging residents, environmentalists, education advocates, appointed and elected officials to do everything in their power to make sure the proposal meets a swift demise.
