For the past three decades, Gary Gillmor has been trying to
bring a mammoth swath of rural land into Gilroy’s boundaries.
However, he and another set of developers will have to wait at
least another year after a split city council rejected their
development applications Monday.
For the past three decades, Gary Gillmor has been trying to bring a mammoth swath of rural land into Gilroy’s boundaries. However, he and another set of developers will have to wait at least another year after a split city council rejected their development applications Monday.
Citing uncertainties over environmental reports, the council voted 4-3 – with Council members Dion Bracco, Bob Dillon and Craig Gartman dissenting – against two annexation requests that would eventually lead to residential development. Gillmor’s Lucky Day Ranch application proposed the incorporation of 285 hilly acres straddling Burchell Road north of Hecker Pass Highway for up to 193 homes and 244 acres of open space and parks – just a sliver of the applicant’s original proposal to annex 2,014 pristine acres stretching up to the Corde Valle Golf Course in San Martin. The council also rejected a separate application from Wren Investors to annex 48 acres near Christopher High School for up to 430 dwellings.
Environmentalists, rural residents and county representatives encouraged the rejections by arguing that at least 2,100 additional residents, about 4 percent of Gilroy, will tax the city’s stressed school and emergency services. That many new residents could cost the county and Gilroy hundreds of thousands of dollars over a 10-year period, according to staff projections that considered property and sales tax revenues against city and county expenses on the hypothetical residents.
“We’ve just gone through a huge budget crisis and are looking to hire more police (officers) and (firefighters) just to catch up,” Council member Peter Arellano said. “I’m not looking forward to trying to find another amount of money to catch up with these developments.”
Opponents also stressed that Gilroy – which has exceeded its self-imposed growth limit – already has enough vacant land to develop 3,500 homes over the next 11 years, according to conservative city estimates. They also decried the projects’ preliminary environmental reports as lacking carbon footprint analyses and avoiding scenarios based on an exact number of homes. Other residents had simpler concerns about the region’s tranquility.
“Bringing more development out into the country is a mistake,” said Jean Myers, a Burchell Road resident who turned out Monday night with dozens of neighbors. “There will be street lights and more traffic that will basically take away from the country atmosphere.”
In addition, Gilroy Unified School District trustees opposed both projects in addition to a third near the Gilroy Sports Park because they wanted the developers to voluntarily pay higher fees to help offset the construction of school facilities that would be needed to house the influx of new students. By opposing the annexation requests, trustees hoped to make it clear that their agreement to the plan is contingent upon developers’ agreement to “full, complete and adequate mitigation of the development’s impact upon the schools.”
Gillmor, a politically active Santa Clara-based developer who has been working on this project since the 1970s, listened to all arguments pensively as he sat for three hours in the front row of the council chambers, his hands clasped over his mouth. His co-applicant, John Vidovich, offered the council a giant carrot in the form of a promise to create an environmental mitigation bank comprised of the 1,730 acres excluded from the annexation request. More than 200 investors own stakes in The Day Ranch land trust, which includes two eagle’s nests.
“Basically this project is a 2,000-acre project, only two percent of which is going to have residential development,” Vidovich said. “(But) we need something that’s going to pay for it.”
Gillmor’s daughter, Lisa Gillmor, and city planners also tried to counter green arguments by reasoning that the city’s 20-year General Plan, which expires in 2020, has already studied future growth and its environmental impact on the proposed areas. Council member Craig Gartman predicted the city will be working on a new General Plan by the time Wren and Lucky Day could even drop shovels in the ground and he emphasized that their environmental reports were meant to supplement the General Plan. Sensing the council’s looming vote, Vidovich offered to “beef up” the environmental review, but the Gillmors appeared tired of bending over backwards.
“My father started this process when I was 9. I’ll be 50 next year,” Lisa Gillmor told the council.
“I think our project has been studied to death,” Gary Gillmor said, adding that he and others have spent $12 million since 1978 – when the first environmental report was conducted – on four environmental reports and other planning fees for the property he has also paid to maintain.
If Lucky Day had passed, Gary Gillmor would have had to pay for a fifth report because a detailed, project-specific environmental review must accompany any project to which the city grants building permits. Before either Lucky Day or Wren would get permits – 2014 at the earliest – both annexation requests have to pass the council and then the Local Agency Formation Commission – a regional agency with veto power over such requests whose annual consideration deadline expires this month.
Gary Gillmor has a low opinion of the agency after it rejected his arrangement with Gilroy 11 years ago to sell 218 of his acres to expand the city golf course. This time around, the Lucky Day team has promised to use some of the 244 acres of park space to add nine more holes to the Gilroy Golf Course, which PGA Representative Emmy Moore Minister told the council she supported. Some council members also accused the agency of unfairly limiting Gilroy’s growth for the sake of control, pointing to LAFCO’s 2002 decision that prevented the incorporation of the sports park in south Gilroy.
“If we can bring Lucky Day in now, it’s ours, and we control it,” Council member Bracco said. “It’s beautiful out there … and it’ll be safe for our children and grandchildren.”
Before the vote, Bracco and Mayor Al Pinheiro said they met with Gary Gillmor. Woodward, Gartman and Dillon said they met with both Gary Gillmor and Wren Investors representatives. Council members Arellano and Cat Tucker said nobody contacted them.
