Everyone in Gilroy is sick of rain, including me. I bore it
patiently until we met our season’s normal rainfall. Now crops are
spoiling, food prices will rise, San Jose basements are flooding
and the weather maps still show storms stacked up from here to
Hawaii.
Everyone in Gilroy is sick of rain, including me. I bore it patiently until we met our season’s normal rainfall. Now crops are spoiling, food prices will rise, San Jose basements are flooding and the weather maps still show storms stacked up from here to Hawaii.
Like it or not, it looks as though we are going to have some more days, maybe weeks, of rain. Every dark cloud is reputed to have a silver lining. Here are some good things about the rain.
1. The hills are green.
2. The reservoirs are full. Therefore we will be able to water lawns and flush toilets all summer long.
3. The groundwater is being recharged. Therefore the water level in the city wells is higher. It will cost the city less to pump this summer. (Do not expect to see any savings on your water bill.)
4. Vegetation is growing furiously. Therefore more wild animals will survive infancy: deer, squirrels, skunks, quail, foxes, and turkeys.
5. On rainy days, it is relatively easy to stay inside and get work done.
6. Lawns do not need to be watered.
7. The rain keeps washing the pollens out of the air: no hay fever.
8. The perchlorate plume is being further diluted, reducing health risks.
That said, I am still ready for the rain to stop, or diminish to once a week.
n n n
Speaking of green hills, Santa Clara County is considering new regulations for hillside houses. I oppose any new infringements on property rights.
I understand the rationale. Some disgusting capitalist pig millionaire wanted to build a 17,000 square foot house in unincorporated San Jose.
Someone else proposed to shave the tops of several hills in Milpitas. The county was having to make ad hoc decisions without developing a coherent strategy, which – oh, horrors!˜left the county open to lawsuits.
So they crafted a plan guaranteed to soothe the sentiments of anyone except a mega millionaire. The rules operate in three tiers. In tier 1, for houses up to 4,500 square feet, they merely restrict the color and the number of buildings close together.
In tier 2, for houses larger than 4,500 square feet, they mandate a design review process with a public hearing and possible restrictions on location and design. And for tier 3, Simply Enormous Houses, they may limit square footage. Numbers being bandied about include 9000, 12,000, and 15,000 square feet.
Such houses will require a design review with a public hearing, additional fees on top of the already extortionate fees required, and low visibility. (I wonder how Fry’s proposal for a castle in Morgan Hill will fare under these rules?)
For the record, our house is 1,463 square feet, which is plenty big enough, except at Christmas when we have family over. We raised three children in it. I would not want to have to clean anything larger. And it is on the valley floor, so these restrictions will never apply to me.
But this whole set of rules is predicated on the assumption that the very idea of a 17,000 square foot mansion will make us plebeians feel so much class envy that we will acquiesce. “Dang millionaire. Who does he think he is, anyway?”
With a struggle, I stamp out the class envy in my heart. That nouveau riche millionaire has as much right to build his stupid gauche McMansion on the hillside as he does to build it on the prime agricultural farmland of the valley floor.
If I have to look at his ugly monstrosity, he has to look at my little salt box – and 20,000 others like it. Maybe he will be courteous and plant a screen of trees, but I would not make a regulation about even that.
The larger issue is whether the Greenbelt Alliance and the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors can tell the thousands of people who own land in the Santa Clara County hills what colors they can paint their houses and how many outbuildings they can have next to their houses.
I say it’s the property owner’s right to have a purple dove cote if he wants one – regardless of how hideous it might be.
Cynthia Anne Walker is a homeschooling mother of three and former engineer. She is a published independent author. Her column is published in The Dispatch every week.
