|
||
|
|
|
|
||
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Mercury News By Brian Schmidt San
Jose's city government wants to build a new satellite city in Coyote Valley, and do it on a rush basis. The frantic pace of Coyote Valley planning appears to be based solely on a desire to complete it before the end of Mayor Ron
Gonzales' administration. The rushed planning to meet this artificial deadline has left truth behind. Sprawl, traffic, air pollution and lost habitat will be the result. If San Jose plans to bury Coyote Valley with development
instead of preserving it, the city should at least attempt a sustainable design. It has not done so. The current plan's focus on 25,000 homes will fall short of the demand created, and require another 10,000 residences that sprawl
out of San Jose, Morgan Hill and elsewhere. Development supporters keep shouting the Coyote Valley plan's "50,000 jobs and 25,000 dwelling units'' mantra, as if the jobs figure were accurate and as if the
housing were sufficient, but neither assertion is correct. San Jose averaged 1.6 jobs per household in the 2000 census, a high number of jobs per household that will probably be lower in the densely packed, small
residential units needed in Coyote Valley. But even without changing San Jose's average for the number of full-time workers living in each residence, anyone with fourth-grade math skills will realize that the plan
provides insufficient housing. Compounding matters, San Jose's plans will actually create more than 50,000 jobs. The city interprets the required 50,000 jobs figure in its plans as meaning only technical and industrial jobs
resulting from corporate development, while excluding from that figure all the service jobs needed for a new city of over 70,000 people. How many support jobs will result? Where will those workers live, especially those requiring
low-income housing? No answer yet from the city, but planning marches onward. The environmental group Greenbelt Alliance has tried to convert San Jose's plans into something resembling smart growth, but even its best efforts
result in demand for over 35,000 dwelling units, so more than 10,000 homes will be needed outside of Coyote Valley. Unplanned sprawl like this is unacceptable, and development advocates must someday face this reality, or we will
all suffer the consequences. Development advocates may point to San Jose's statement that 25,000 dwelling units is supposedly just a minimum figure, so more residences could be added to reduce the sprawl effect
from industrial development. If they really want to put 35,000 to 40,000 homes in Coyote Valley, however, they had better start showing just how they plan to do it. A more likely outcome is that supporters will
maintain a facade that Coyote Valley is sustainable until forced to admit otherwise in the required environmental documentation, at which point they will say it is too late to stop "progress.'' There
is no need to rush the planning. There certainly is no need for permitting further industrial development in addition to the development rights that the city has already granted to Cisco Systems. Rather than
adding another check mark to the mayoral "to do'' list, planners of this major expansion of San Jose should step back, look at the actual facts, and act in a way that is truly honest and sustainable. BRIAN
SCHMIDT is the Santa Clara County legislative advocate for the Committee for Green Foothills. He wrote this column for the Mercury News. COMMUNITY WORKSHOP
The next Coyote Valley Task Force and Community Workshop will be from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday at the Coyote Creek Golf Club, located off the Coyote Creek Golf Club Drive exit on Highway 101. For more information go to
Page last updated August 16, 2004 . |
|
|
|
||||
|
|||
|
|
|
|
|
|||
