GILROY
– When Glen Loma Group developer John Filice asks City Council
Monday night to make a 60-acre Day Road parcel part of Gilroy, he
won’t be getting the support of the mayor.
GILROY – When Glen Loma Group developer John Filice asks City Council Monday night to make a 60-acre Day Road parcel part of Gilroy, he won’t be getting the support of the mayor.
Mayor Tom Springer believes that because the site could ultimately include Gilroy’s second comprehensive high school – and not the homes drawn up in the rough draft plans to be presented tonight – moving Gilroy’s boundaries would violate the state’s environmental laws.
“I don’t think it’s ethically, intellectually or legally honest to say ‘ignore this,’ when it’s public knowledge the school district wants to put a high school there,” Springer said in an interview prior to today’s 7 p.m. meeting. “It is a significant potential use for the area that when annexing the land, we the city must consider.”
City staff is recommending that Council annex the Day Road/Santa Teresa Boulevard site into Gilroy, zone it as residential and approve basic environmental mitigation for the proposed housing and Catholic parish project.
Annexation is important for all interested parties because it makes it easier, and in some cases possible, to receive city services such as police and fire protection and water and sewer utilities.
“To hold off on an annex and zone change for something that might not ever happen (the high school site) isn’t something we can do,” Gilroy planner Melissa Durkin said.
Filice is applauding the recommendation since annexing the site enables the property owner – the Silveira family – to sell 10 acres of the parcel to the Catholic Church. And, like city staff, Filice says City Council should not consider the potential high school site when they make their decision because those plans may never come to pass.
“I hope Council can stay on point tonight,” Filice said Monday.
Although Gilroy Unified School District trustees selected that site for the new high school, environmental analysis of the site must be completed before a final deal can be reached. The process could take another year and could result in the need to build the school at an alternative location.
In a July 16 letter to City Council, Filice wrote “Annexing the Silveira property and establishing a new parish for Gilroy has absolutely nothing to do with the high school issue.”
According to Springer, the law says it does, and City Council could spend hours Monday debating this point.
Springer believes that had the Gilroy Planning Commission and County of Santa Clara known more about the plans for a high school, these agencies would have asked different questions and reached different conclusions about the fate of the land.
Durkin said she first heard of the high school plans at the January public hearing. However, a June 4 letter from GUSD Superintendent Edwin Diaz to Filice reveals the school district entered into a non-binding letter of intent to purchase the Silveira site already in November 2002.
The agreement subsequently had to be withdrawn by GUSD until further environmental work, including analysis of other potential sites, could be completed. However, Springer says that level of intent goes beyond speculation and should have been a focus of the planning commission, the county and other agencies.
“There might be significant new mitigation required especially in the area of air, water and traffic,” Springer said. “One of the big questions would be whether placing the high school on the site is growth inducing.”
“I don’t remember a huge public outcry about the site being used one day for a high school,” Gilroy Planning Commission member Paul Correa said. Correa said his recollection of the January meeting is less than perfect, but recalled having some level of knowledge about the potential for a high school site then.
Based on the residential/parish project alone, the Bay Area Air Quality Management District called the project “inconsistent with the vision of Gilroy” and disagreed with the city when staff claimed the annexation should go forward without a more stringent environmental review.
Residents of Day Road and the surrounding area, who have long fought placing a high school near them, are feeling especially slighted by the city recommendation.
“I think it’s amazing it has gotten this far when the city attorney already told them in April it was inappropriate to annex the site (as a residentially zoned area),” Day Road resident Chris Messmer said. “I think it’s insulting to both the City Council and the public that (Diaz’s letter to Filice) could be misinterpreted or overlooked to make people believe the school board is not interested in this site.”
On June 19, GUSD trustees voted 6-1 to begin preliminary environmental work on the Day Road site and begin purchase negotiations with the Silveiras.
