The Uvas Creek bridge will shift north
Gilroy – The specific plan to guide development in the Hecker Pass corridor wasn’t specific enough, city council members decided Monday night, deferring a vote that would have cleared the way for hundreds of new homes so officials can find ways to preserve the rural character of the city’s scenic western corridor.
Landowners eager to bring hundreds of homes to the area spent five years on a task force developing the Hecker Pass Specific Plan, approved a year ago by council. That plan spells out in broad strokes the need for new intersections along Hecker Pass, to connect the arterial roadway with residential development slated for the south and north along the corridor.
But the landowners, residents and city staff who spent years on the document failed to explore the “minutiae,” such as the fact that new intersections would trigger state requirements for a road widening that, in turn, would mean cutting down dozens of historic Deodara cedar trees along the south side of the wall or installing a 1,550-foot retaining wall along the north.
“Had we been sitting here, being told that these kinds of things were going to happen, maybe we would have looked at things differently,” Mayor Al Pinheiro said, referring to the council debate surrounding the plan a year earlier. “I’m not ready to give up on saving the trees. We need to go back to the drawing board to mitigate this.”
The decision pleased dozens of residents and local environmentalists, who arrived at City Hall a half hour early on Monday to stage a rally.
During the meeting, members of local nonprofit Save Open Space Gilroy reiterated their belief that additional studies are required to flesh out details not covered by the Hecker Pass Specific Plan.
Meanwhile, representatives for neighbors living to the north of Hecker Pass criticized both expansion of the road to the north or south, suggesting the city find new options such as eliminating an intersection slated for construction in front of Good Shepherd Lutheran Church.
“You can’t give access and rights to new property owners at the expense of old property owners,” resident Susan Bassey said.
Joel Goldsmith, one of the Hecker Pass landowners who helped craft the specific plan, said that no one involved in creating the document realized the extent of road widening the state would require. He and other landowners face the prospect of months of additional planning, but he called council’s decision to explore additional options “the best decision they could have made.”
While the city can proceed with Hecker Pass development at its own pace, council members were forced Monday night to choose one of two relocation plans for Uvas Creek Bridge.
With state transportation officials offering to relocate the deteriorating bridge either to the north or south, council members unanimously favored the northern plan.
The move will spare 15 of the Deodara cedars lining the south side of Hecker Pass, but will require wrapping a 1,600-foot retaining wall around the intersection of Burchell Road and the scenic highway.
