While the Diocese of San Jose and a group of local residents are digging their heels into Morgan Hill’s Southeast Quadrant with plans to build a new Catholic high school, the developer of an artificial snowboard mountain – once planned nearby – has his sights set on property in a larger city farther north.
Earlier this week, the Diocese of San Jose closed on the purchase of 20 acres near Murphy and Barrett avenues. They plan to combine that purchase with property the Diocese already owns next door, which stretches to the northeast corner of Tennant and Murphy avenues – also a 20-acre parcel – to build the South County Catholic High School.
The school is currently slated to open in 2017, according to SCCHS committee members George Chiala and Susan Krajewski. The committee is in the middle of a fundraising effort to raise about $30 million for the first phase of the project.
The co-ed college preparatory high school will start with a freshman class of 125 students, and enroll about 150 more students each year until it reaches a total enrollment of about 600, Krajewski said. At full buildout, the school will also have well-equipped sports programs and facilities for football, baseball, basketball, soccer and swimming.
Also this week, Martin Benik, CEO of Leading Edge Slope Development, announced that he has revived his plans to build a man-made snowboarding mountain. But this time, he is targeting other locations in various Bay Area cities, including San Jose, Fremont and Mountain View.
Although the City is currently pursuing annexation of the property as part of a larger land-use program and that would allow a project like his, Benik doesn’t know how long that process will take.
“It’s not the city’s fault,” Benik said. “But I’m not in a position where we can wait any longer, and we’ve started looking for other sites.”
The SCCHS and, formerly, the snowboard park are part of the ongoing saga of the City of Morgan Hill’s Southeast Quadrant annexation effort that began nearly 10 years ago.
The SEQ consists of about 1,200 acres on the east side of the U.S. 101. It is bound by the freeway, Maple Avenue to the south, San Pedro Avenue to the north and Carey Lane to the east. Property in the area is owned by numerous different owners, with Chiala in possession of a larger parcel farther to the east where he plans to develop a residential planned community.
Aside from the city’s Outdoor Sports Complex and Aquatics Center, the area mostly consists of single homes on large lots and farmland.
The City wants to annex about 760 acres of the SEQ into the city limits in order to control growth, preserve open space for a “greenbelt” around the city, and promote more sports and recreational uses in the area.
All of the property in the area is currently in Santa Clara County’s land use jurisdiction.
An environmental study of the SEQ is underway, according to Morgan Hill Senior Planner Rebecca Tolentino.
The overall environmental study of the SEQ will cost about $480,000. The city is responsible for about $173,000 of that cost, with some property owners in the area – including the Diocese – putting up the remaining cost, City staff said.
The City’s plans have encountered ongoing criticism from some residents and conservation groups. The Committee for Green Foothills is opposed, partly because the City already has thousands of acres of undeveloped property in the city limits. The committee argues that planners should focus on these underdeveloped properties before stretching already-strained city services to annex more farmland and open space.
Developers of the SCCHS are adamant that their plans are responsible and will be an asset to the community.
Despite some recent criticism in response to the Diocese’s chosen site for SCCHS, the committee chose the 40-acre property because it has already been analyzed for a high school. The Morgan Hill Unified School District in 1998 even conducted an environmental study of the site, which was the district’s preferred location for Ann Sobrato High School, Krajewski said.
MHUSD ended up building the school in north Morgan Hill on Burnett Avenue instead, after the land at that site was donated to the district.
The need for a new Catholic high school in the South Bay is readily apparent, committee members said. The Diocese has not built a new high school in about 50 years. Currently about 400 high school students in South County and Hollister leave the area daily to attend Catholic high schools in other communities. These schools range from 20 to 40 miles outside Morgan Hill.
Plus, the committee has identified families who live in South County who would like to send their kids to a Catholic high school, but choose not to because of the demands of the commute, Krajewski said.
“The school will certainly be an asset to this area, and provide another choice in education. It will be community-oriented,” said Chiala, who noted that Catholic high school students in general are required to perform community service as part of their curriculum.
Annexation of the proposed SCCHS property into the city limits is “necessary,” as the school will depend on city services, Krajewski said. While the school is part of the City’s environmental study, and the committee has not considered a scenario in which the City’s SEQ plan fails, Chiala said the Diocese would pursue annexation of the property into the city limits on its own if it has to.
Mayor Steve Tate, who has served has mayor throughout the SEQ process, had mixed reactions to the future of SCCHS and the snowboard park. The high school, he said, would benefit the community by allowing many students to go to school closer to home.
The snowboard park, however, was never the mayor’s top priority for the SEQ.
“We want more (sports facilities), but on the other hand it’s not leaving any natural open space,” Tate said. “And I don’t know how big a draw it would really be.”
Other projects proposed in the overall SEQ plan that are currently under environmental review include a planned residential development proposed farther east by Chiala, and more sports fields including privately owned cricket and polo fields.
One SEQ property owner – the Di Vittorio family – owns about 20 undeveloped acres at the intersection of Tennant and Murphy avenues. They said Wednesday that they will not try to develop or sell the property as long as their vision for a 160-acre mixed-use development with residential, commercial, retail, office, entertainment and dining uses, enclosed by non-stop traffic loop that allows limited vehicle access into underground parking areas below the development, remains feasible.
That project, which Jim Di Vittorio said is “in the back of their minds” at City Hall, would straddle what is now Tennant Avenue in the SEQ.
Right now, that idea seems unlikely to become a reality as it would require the land where SCCHS is proposed. However, while the Di Vittorios are not aggressively lobbying for the project, they aren’t ready to throw in the towel.
The location just off the freeway is perfect, according to Di Vittorio, who said it would draw tax revenues to the city and the impact would be imperceptible from other parts of town.
“We’re hoping at a certain point, (the city) will realize this is a great opportunity and the proper thing to do,” Di Vittorio said.
One critic of the City’s SEQ plans – former City Councilman Mark Grzan – said SCCHS, which is moving along faster than any other proposals in the SEQ, is a “bait tactic” to speed up the annexation of more than 700 acres. Grzan thinks after those acres are annexed, the City and developers will eventually change course and promote more high-density residential uses in the SEQ.
That would destroy numerous parcels that house “prime farmland” in the SEQ, he said. Plus, he wonders how much demand there would be for facilities like cricket and polo fields.
“We have 3,000 acres in our city limits that could meet the 40-acre requirement” for SCCHS, Grzan said. “Leave (the SEQ) in the county. There is already planning protection provided by the county.”
