Coyote Valley, the largely undeveloped area between Morgan Hill
and San Jose, is taking shape, though, so far, it is only on paper.
The Morgan Hill School Board and residents can get a glimpse of
this shape-in-progress when the proposal known as
“The Coyote Valley Specific Plan” is presented at Monday’s board
meeting along with an alternative plan by the Greenbelt
Alliance.
Coyote Valley, the largely undeveloped area between Morgan Hill and San Jose, is taking shape, though, so far, it is only on paper.
The Morgan Hill School Board and residents can get a glimpse of this shape-in-progress when the proposal known as “The Coyote Valley Specific Plan” is presented at Monday’s board meeting along with an alternative plan by the Greenbelt Alliance.
Morgan Hill’s stake in Coyote Valley’s 6,800-acre development revolves mostly around the fact that the Morgan Hill School District extends north to Bernal Road and includes the entire Coyote Valley. With 25,000 housing units holding as many as 80,000 residents, the impact on the school district will be huge.
The City of San Jose – the state’s third largest – is carefully considering the area’s development, trying to avoid the faceless urban sprawl so familiar to much of Santa Clara Valley. To that end, a task force has been studying the best ways to integrate housing, schools, greenbelts, retail and commercial with an industrial base and a complex public transit system that will make it all work, so residents do not have to climb in their cars to get everywhere.
The key words, proponents contend, are “smart growth,” a concept catching on nationwide and encouraged locally by the Greenbelt Alliance. The Alliance presented its image of the “New Urbanism” to the community Tuesday along with the task force’s specific plan and will show it off at a second community meeting next Saturday, Nov. 8, at the Southside Community Center in San Jose.
The plan, at buildout, also includes 50,000 new jobs.
Trustees are expected to be greatly interested on how the plan will pay for new schools. Some cities force developers to build their own schools. Currently, San Jose requires developers to pay fees to the district.
David Vossbrink, communications director for San Jose Mayor Ron Gonzales, said the task force has been looking at the problems of providing schools.
“They’ve been identifying all community services that need to go along with this development,” Vossbrink said. “The goal here is to make sure that it makes sense, that you don’t have homes ahead of the schools.”
The only Morgan Hill representative on the task force is Russ Danielson, a former MHSD trustee who lives in San Jose but has a business in Morgan Hill. He said he is happy to see the plan develop in a sensible way.
The second community meeting on the future of Coyote Valley will be held Saturday, Nov. 8, 10 a.m.-noon at the Southside Community Center, 5585 Cottle Road, San Jose. Details: www.sanjoseca.gov/coyotevalley or Sal Yakubu, 277-4576.
The School Board will hold its regular meeting at 7 p.m. Monday at the District Office, 15600 Concord Circle. Details: 201-6000. The meeting will be broadcast on cable Channel 19 at a later date; the MHAT broadcast schedule runs in The Times on Tuesdays.
