There’s a new leader in the Coyote Valley planning process and a
detectable shift in direction
A proposal to attract new business to Coyote Valley by building thousands of houses has been scrapped.
Instead, San Jose will now actively market Coyote Valley to large companies and promise to build housing and other amenities if those companies pledge to locate in the last large rural buffer between San Jose and Morgan Hill.
“Our major emphasis now is to get commitments from whatever major businesses that we can. Get signed assurances they will come to Coyote Valley to do their business,” said Councilwoman Nancy Pyle.
The task force has been meeting since 2002 to fine tune the Coyote Valley Specific Plan, which envisions a self-contained community of 25,000 homes, 50,000 jobs and 80,000 people.
Pyle replaced San Jose Mayor Ron Gonzales as one of the task force’s co-leaders last month. The mayor stopped down from many of his appointed positions after admitting his role in a backroom deal for a garbage services contract.
While he was on the task force, the mayor advocated doing away with one or more of the so-called “triggers” for Coyote Valley development, including a requirement that 5,000 new jobs come to the area before any new housing is built. Gonzales proposed adding jobs and houses concurrently, in a two-to-one ratio, in any increment.
A few months after Gonzales made that proposal, an economic consultant suggested that another trigger – that the development not burden city finances – could be met by building homes immediately. The consultant said development fees in a hot housing market could generate enough revenue to fund the initial round of needed infrastructure improvements of about $600 million. Total infrastructure costs, to provide water, sewer, road and other improvements to the 7,000 acres of Coyote Valley will be at least $1.6 billion.
But that idea has stalled from fears that San Jose could be left with a giant suburb in Coyote Valley. So Pyle, and her co-chairman, Councilman Forrest Williams, are pushing a plan to do both at once, in a model that could lower the jobs trigger, but still require thousands of jobs before home building occurs. Williams was traveling on city business and could not be reached.
Kerry Williams is the president of the Coyote Housing Group, a consortium of homebuilders financing the planning process who also have major real estate interests in Coyote Valley. She said Pyle’s direction is acceptable to developers, and in her view, consistent with the mayor’s proposals.
“The mayor’s memo was intended to spark discussion,” Williams said. “We don’t want housing to move forward unchecked. We need an early commitment of jobs as well. This sounds completely consistent with the direction the task force has been going on this issue.”
Pyle did not provide a timeline or commit to a number of jobs required to build houses. Nor did she say if any specific companies had been targeted.
“How do you get the housing and the jobs married to one another seamlessly? That’s the trick,” Pyle said. “If you get housing before you get jobs that does not mean people will stay there to get a job. Now, if we have major companies that agree to come and conduct their business, that would step things up, but that would be a natural consequence of staying with the plan.”
An aide to Pyle said the new jobs trigger and housing plans will depend heavily on a fiscal analysis that could be completed by the end of March. That study will have updated figures on the cost of developing Coyote Valley, and the best ways to finance construction.
Brian Schmidt, with the Committee for Green Foothills, said it’s too soon to make those decisions because the project’s environmental impact report is not complete. Until it is, he said, the city cannot lawfully make specific development promises to companies. He also warned against creating a system that would encourage companies to leave downtown San Jose for Coyote Valley.
“I’m glad to hear that making Coyote Valley a huge suburb is not an option on the table right now,” Schmidt said. “They need to be careful to not tie jobs and houses so closely together that it becomes a subsidy that damages central San Jose. Stricter triggers are the only way to avoid that. An outright statement that central San Jose is a priority over Coyote Valley would be best.”
What’s Next
– The Coyote Valley Specific Plan Task Force meets the second and fourth Mondays most months. In March, the task force will consider an economic analysis that will have significant implications for what kind of development occurs there and when that will happen. The San Jose City Council is slated to approve a final plan for Coyote Valley in early 2007.
– The next meeting is Monday, Feb. 27, at 5:30pm, in San Jose City Hall, 200 Santa Clara St.
