GILROY
– The seventh-generation Gilroy family fighting to keep water
rights it has enjoyed for decades garnered a first-step victory
last week in court against the developer of the high-end Eagle
Ridge housing project.
GILROY – The seventh-generation Gilroy family fighting to keep water rights it has enjoyed for decades garnered a first-step victory last week in court against the developer of the high-end Eagle Ridge housing project.
Santa Clara County Superior Court Judge William Elfving granted a preliminary injunction against Shapell Industries, temporarily barring the Milpitas-based developer from removing a water line that is preventing the development of 13 new Eagle Ridge homes. The roughly quarter-mile pipeline, which had been cut by Shapell in June and restored weeks later after an order by the court, has been bringing water to Dolores Thomas and her family for free for several decades.
“The bully (Shapell) got a bloody nose,” Thomas family lawyer Perry Woodward said after receiving Judge Elfving’s decision by mail Thursday. “This is a positive sign for our case.”
The judge’s decision means that the Thomases will receive water as they have been historically until the lawsuit the family filed in late June is resolved. Woodward gave a rough estimate of one to three years before the case, which seeks permanent usage of the water line, concludes.
“What makes the situation so complicated is that the ranch has been using this water for 100 years, and there have been a lot of different owners on the Shapel property,” Woodward said.
The Thomas family claims they, for decades, have had handshake agreements with property owners to use the water that runs the course of the pipeline. But Shapell attorneys say the pipeline adversely affects development of their city-approved housing plans. And, Shapell says it has arranged for the Thomases to hook up to city water on as little as a day’s notice.
“What the plaintiff complains of is not the inability to obtain water, but the requirement to pay for that water,” Shapell attorney Steven Bernard wrote in the lawsuit.
It is not clear if Shapell Industries will appeal the injunction since Bernard did not return phone calls before deadline.
Shapell has permission to build 13 homes in the mouth of the canyon behind the Thomas’ ranch, but the water line impacts the developer’s ability to do grading for five of the units.
The Thomases don’t think they should be forced to give up their pristine spring water supply. The Thomases claim a former Eagle Ridge official who is now deceased promised them years ago they would always be able to use water from the spring. According to Woodward, Jack and Arline Thomas were not opposed to the Eagle Ridge development as long as their water and other property rights were respected.
Shapell attorneys argue that the company formally canceled a licensing agreement from the 1920s in February 1997. However, Woodward says the law protects the Thomases in this instance since Shapell did not cut off the water line within five years of canceling the licensing agreement.
Days after Shapell cut off the Thomas’ water supply, the family filed suit. In addition to permanent restoration of the water line, the Thomas want $50,000 to compensate them for alleged drops in property value. The family is in escrow to sell one of the three houses on the ranch.
The water line is not the first hiccup for Shapell’s development, according to the Thomas family. The Thomases say they declined to sell off a chunk of their ranch which would have served as an access road to the development.
