We
’ve got a vague yet pervasive sense of frustration and
bewilderment about the entire Coyote Valley development proposal,
process and reaction.
We’ve got a vague yet pervasive sense of frustration and bewilderment about the entire Coyote Valley development proposal, process and reaction.
Evidence is rapidly mounting that suggests the project should be scrapped. The City of San Jose is nowhere close to satisfying its own “development triggers” – prerequisite that must be met before earth will be moved in the area just north of Morgan Hill. In fact, Mayor Ron Gonzales has recommended abandoning the triggers.
The triggers include requirements such as ensuring the northern part of Coyote Valley have 5,000 new jobs, creating a five-year economic forecast that projects a balanced or surplus budget for San Jose, financial stability between San Jose and the state, and city services restored to 1993 levels.
Needless to say, these conditions won’t be met anytime soon.
It all adds up to a completely unnecessary development considering the vast sea of vacant offices and warehouses scattered throughout the northern region of Silicon Valley. But San Jose City Council members don’t need to take our word for it. They just need to listen to their own budget director.
“Until things pick up or we reduce services we will probably have shortfalls for the foreseeable future,” Larry Lisenbee said recently. “Until I see some indications that the job situation is improving, I will caution the City Council that they should not expect any upswing in the Silicon Valley economy.”
To say nothing of the news that there isn’t enough water to meet the colossal demand of new 80,000 residents in 25,000 homes and the 50,000 workers planned for Coyote Valley. That’s just one of many environmental concerns about this proposal that has us scratching our heads and wondering: Where are the tree huggers and the legion of lawsuits demanding the project call it quits?
Environmentalists must take a long, hard look at Coyote Valley, the process and the plan and quickly raise their collective objections loudly in court now before it is too late.
Finally, there are the schools. Coyote Valley is currently in the Morgan Hill School District, whose borders extend from San Martin to Bernal Road in South San Jose. However, MHSD does not have a representative on the planning task force. No school board member or district employee sits on the panel that’s planning the schools for the district.
That alone is an outrage. But now, Coyote Valley planners have set aside plots of land for schools that probably won’t meet state standards. There’s an understandable buzz in the Morgan Hill community about splitting the district so that Coyote Valley and points north become an independent school district or join an existing district in San Jose.
That’s an idea with a lot of appeal, but with the possibility of many unintended and unpleasant consequences, not the least of which are financial.
We believe the developers who are pushing Coyote Valley development and paying for the task force’s work have a debt to the Morgan Hill School District and the taxpayers within its borders: They should pay for a study of the school district split by a consultant of the school district’s choosing.
It’s unfair to burden the district and its taxpayers with the cost of determining best reaction to this uninvited plan in which they have no voice in shaping.
The frustration is low-level and pervasive, but it’s growing. We urge San Jose City Council to put the brakes on this project before lawsuits from environmentalists, the school district, and neighboring communities strike San Jose where it hurts – in the wallet.
There’s simply no sense in lining lawyers’ pockets for an unnecessary project that only serves to increase Mayor Gonzales’ ego and home developers’ bank accounts.
