After months of being rebuffed by San Jose for a voice in
planning Coyote Valley development, which the City Council insists
will have a huge impact on the area, the council has, as promised,
arranged for South Valley stakeholders to meet on their own.
After months of being rebuffed by San Jose for a voice in planning Coyote Valley development, which the City Council insists will have a huge impact on the area, the council has, as promised, arranged for South Valley stakeholders to meet on their own.
The results will be passed on to San Jose for its consideration.
Representation on the Coyote Valley Specific Plan Task Force (the main planning body) is also likely to be discussed, as both Mayor Dennis Kennedy and School Board President George Panos have more than once requested in letters to San Jose Mayor Ron Gonzales that the city and the school district have seats at the task force table.
San Jose plans to develop the area between the two cities with an eventual 80,000 new residents, 50,000 new homes and 25,000 jobs, a large enough happening that council wants to have a say in planning. No Morgan Hill or South Valley resident sits on the task force except County Supervisor Don Gage, who represents a much larger constituency.
A one-hour workshop scheduled for Wednesday, May 19, at 5 p.m., is designed to bring together agencies that will be affected by the development of the Coyote Valley: the cities of Morgan Hill and Gilroy, Gavilan College, the Morgan Hill School District and the San Martin Neighborhood Association.
Gage and Alex Kennett, the district one representative from the Open Space Authority, have also been invited. Craige Edgerton is on the Task Force, but represents the OSA’s district 7, which extends as far south as Metcalf Road. Kennett’s district includes all of Coyote Valley considered under the plan. He was not invited to sit on the task force.
The Coyote Valley plan is studying the area west of Monterey Road, largely south of Metcalf Road to just north of Burnett Avenue. Roughly, the northern sector is being considered as light industrial, the central sector as urban residential and the southern area closest to Morgan Hill will remain greenbelt.
Much of the greenbelt land is not in the City of San Jose but in the county, and the county has not said the land may not be developed.
City Manager Ed Tewes on Friday invited MHSD representatives to participate in the workshop, important since the district’s boundaries include all the area slated for development, extending north to Bernal Road in south San Jose.
The district currently has three schools in the northern end of the district: Martin Murphy Middle, Los Paseos Elementary and the former Encinal Elementary, now the Charter School of Morgan Hill, which was sponsored by the district.
MHSD is building a second high school, Ann Sobrato High, within the City of San Jose limits, on Burnett Avenue just across the Morgan Hill city limits. The City of Morgan Hill is in the process of annexing the land the school is being built on.
Task Force member Russ Danielson has also been invited. Danielson is a former Morgan Hill School Board member, a San Jose resident and the owner of a downtown Morgan Hill business, Jody’s Junction Stationers.
The purpose of the workshop is to identify and discuss mutual concerns about the development of Coyote Valley and to discuss ways to improve the effectiveness of the Specific Plan process.
