By Joel Goldsmith
As a Hecker Pass landowner and, more importantly, Chairman of
the Hecker Pass Specific Plan Advisory Committee, I feel that I
need to respond to the recent guest column written by Connie
Rogers. There are a number of points that are either wrong,
misleading, or need further clarification.
By Joel Goldsmith
As a Hecker Pass landowner and, more importantly, Chairman of the Hecker Pass Specific Plan Advisory Committee, I feel that I need to respond to the recent guest column written by Connie Rogers. There are a number of points that are either wrong, misleading, or need further clarification.
First of all, the Hecker Pass Specific Plan Advisory Committee was made up of a mix of individuals who had an interest in what happened to the Hecker Pass area. This included landowners, City Council and Planning Commission members, adjacent landowners, General Plan Update Committee members and Citizens for Balanced Growth, among others. The committee met regularly over a period of 13 months, and all decisions made or conclusions reached were by unanimous consent. All of these meetings were noticed and open to the public, and every meeting set aside time for comments from the audience. Connie was a regular attendee, and raised most of her concerns on multiple occasions.
In the opening paragraph of her column, Connie prints a section from the General Plan Update that pertains to the Hecker Pass Area. We, as Committee members, know this section extremely well, as it was our guiding principal as we went through the process of developing the Specific Plan. It was enlarged and place on an easel at every one of our meetings. It was the goal that we achieved.
As Connie noted in her “Good” section, the majority of the land in the Hecker Pass area will be either open space or agricultural preserve. This is unprecedented in any area of Gilroy and will ensure that generations to come will be able to enjoy this area, as we all do today. It also will create large areas of parkland and trails for the use and enjoyment of the residents of the area and all Gilroyans. I am also glad that she appreciates the mix of housing types that can be built in the area. This was an important part of our decision making process, and will be addressed in more detail later on.
The first item in Connie’s “Bad” section is the number of changes being made to the General Plan. This can be misleading when taken out of context, as the Hecker Pass Specific Plan is a requirement of the General Plan, and actually serves to implement the General Plan for this area. It is virtually impossible to create a document as in-depth as the Hecker Pass Specific Plan without creating some inconsistencies between the two documents. Our responsibility was to strengthen the General Plan regarding Hecker Pass, and that is what we did. As for her comments about the “tail wagging the dog,” I’m assuming she is trying to paint a picture of the landowners controlling the process, which wasn’t the case. Additionally, most of the “33” changes to the General Plan which Connie refers to where minor changes to make the General Plan internally consistent.
She then gets to what I think is the real issue; the number of houses.
This was a very detailed process that started with every member of the HPSPAC verbalizing their own vision for the Hecker Pass area. Not one person thought that having 125 houses on 2.5 acre lots was what they wanted to see. This is critical, because that is what the target density in the General Plan was based on. The committee was unanimous in its desire to see a clustering of homes away from Hecker Pass Highway, and a mix of housing types in the area. We worked from there, not with a predetermined number of homes, but with a vision. We developed guidelines for setbacks, open space and design. When we took all of those criteria, the number of houses we could allow was simple mathematics. While it was more than most of us thought it would be going in, we were confident in the analysis we had done, and therefore were comfortable with the number of houses. As an aside, I need to state that during the process, 85 homes were added by the City Council as part of their efforts to help Bonfante Gardens.
Ironically, Connie also doesn’t like the fact that the residential area is clustered just north of the creek even though the General Plan suggests clustering in the very same areas. Nobody on the HPSPAC wanted to see the houses spread over the entire area, and having residential as far away from Hecker Pass Highway as possible was agreed unanimously. Included in the Specific Plan are numerous design standards to avoid having homes that aren’t pleasing to the eye. Having the homes in the general area of the existing homes in Eagle Ridge, we felt, was beneficial in preserving the open space in the other areas of Hecker Pass.
Nowhere is it stated that every use in the Hecker Pass area must be agricultural. We have made allowances for a fairly broad range of activities, with the knowledge that specific approvals will come through the regular city processes, including scrutiny by both the Planning Commission and City Council. This criticism is especially unfair, as Connie stated on numerous occasions how she wanted to see bicycle and rollerblade rental shops in the area to service people using the Uvas Levee extension. I believe those are non-agricultural uses and would fall under the proposed designations of outdoor amusement and recreation.
The issue of permanently protecting the agricultural lands from future City Councils was asked at the Planning Commission meeting, and the city attorney stated that any requirements made now were subject to change by future City Councils. We have done what is possible under the law. It will be up to future City Councils to maintain the vision for Hecker Pass.
Now, on to the “Ugly”. Whether or not any of the cedar trees are removed is going to depend on what is done with the roadway. We have included two signalized intersections, and the installation of those will require the removal of some trees. CalTrans may have other requirements for widening sections of the road that could threaten the trees. We all want to see the trees remain. Our power to accomplish that is limited since Hecker Pass is a state highway. We did the best that we could in the document to eliminate the need for four lanes and minimize impacts to these trees. Decisions on removal of specific trees should be addressed in public debate.
Connie’s statement that the setbacks in the plan are not enough to qualify for State Scenic Highway designation are incorrect. We have talked to CalTrans, and they don’t have setback requirements for Scenic Highways, and they feel that the setbacks in the plan are more than adequate and that the Specific Plan has done an admirable job in allowing for a State Scenic Highway designation. The feeling of the HPSPAC was that if Hecker Pass is widened to four lanes then it will not be scenic, and we should work to prevent that from happening. I would hope that SOS would be a part of that effort should the need arise.
Whether or not South Valley Community Church has lighted sports fields is not an issue for the Specific Plan. That is a use issue, which is a different, and later, process. It is not a relevant statement.
This plan is a good one. Ask any member of the Advisory Committee, and they will tell you that developing this plan was possible because of the co-operation of all the members of the committee, from the members of Citizens for Balanced Growth to the property owners. Everyone worked together to fulfill the vision set forth in the General Plan, and to create something that we can all be proud of – a shining example of environmentally sensitive smart growth. The landowners agreed that this area should be saved, at great cost to them financially. All of this property is within the Gilroy City Limits, and will be preserved for our future generations. Connie and Save Open Space should be working to get this plan adopted and not undone.
