Three hours of geological negotiating and $4,750 later, the City
of Morgan Hill is still at an impasse with the building permit for
the American Math Institute’s planned headquarters and the study
that stands in its way.
Three hours of geological negotiating and $4,750 later, the City of Morgan Hill is still at an impasse with the building permit for the American Math Institute’s planned headquarters and the study that stands in its way.
Before development can continue at the site, located on the southeast corner of Foothill and Maple avenues east of U.S. 101, AIM and the city’s geologists have to agree that building won’t “reactivate” a square-mile adjacent landslide. City geologist Peter Anderson contends that AIM geologist Rex Upp didn’t dig deep enough when researching the matter, and therefore Upp’s study does not meet state requirements.
A second peer review, Cotton, Shire and Associates, Inc. agrees with Anderson.
Upp and Anderson met last week to negotiate their differences, and were unable to reach agreement. Anderson says between $50,000 and $100,000 in work still needs to be done for the study to be conclusive.
But AIM officials refuse to pay for further study.
To compromise, the city agreed to pay $750 to Upp for the city-requested meeting last Wednesday. Mayor Steve Tate and council members Greg Sellers and Marilyn Librers also voted to pay $4,000 toward Anderson’s work, which typically would be picked up by the developer. The council agreed that a development agreement, which acts as a contract between the city and the developer on complicated projects like the institute, was a good idea.
Council members Larry Carr and Marby Lee, however, voted against this motion.
“A development agreement is a good idea, but it should be comprehensive to include everything … We ought to be partners in it, not pay (electronics magnate and institute founder John) Fry’s way to negotiate them into a development agreement.”
Lee said she, too, felt AIM needed to pay the $4,000.
This is the latest in a slew of setbacks for the math institute and Fry. In 1998, the city discovered that Fry had begun redesigning the Institute Golf Course without permits. Both the golf course project and the castle-cum-AIM headquarters adjacent to it have been mired in scrutiny from the city and environmental groups since.
Community Development Director Kathy Molloy Previsich said this is not a typical development agreement, and AIM has already been through the preliminary permitting process. Molloy Previsich estimated it would take six to eight weeks to negotiate an agreement. The city is still working on setting up an initial meeting with AIM.
