Enough residents have applied to participate on an influential
panel that will help plan the future of east Gilroy. Now the city
council just has to decide who it likes.
Enough residents have applied to participate on an influential panel that will help plan the future of east Gilroy. Now the city council just has to decide who it likes.
This comes after the council told staff Oct. 22 that it wanted more say in and more residential representation on the East Gilroy Specific Plan Task Force. The task force will dictate the future development of 681 acres of mostly farmland located south and east of the existing Gilroy Premium Outlets.
The Westfield Group, which hopes to build a huge mall east of Gilroy, wanted a city-hired consultant that it pays to screen residents for the task force and then guide them through a year of decisions.
But several councilmen made it clear that they not only wanted more residents and a school board representative involved in the plan, but they also did not like the idea of an outside consultant (Moore, Iacofano, Goltsmann) filtering people before the council had a chance to meet them.
That is why City Planner Deborah Schwarz will present the council with all 12 applicants Dec. 17. The task force has a total of 15 members: Six are public officials picked by their respective agencies, and the 12 applicants Schwarz will present are vying for nine spots the council reserved for affected property owners, citizens at large and open space advocates.
Mayor Al Pinheiro said he was pleased with staff’s acquiescence.
“They’ve done what we told them to do,” Pinheiro said in reference to the council’s directive to have to council review all applicants.
Westfield wants to build a 1.5-million-square-foot mega mall on 108 of the 681 acres outside the city’s eastern limits. The Australian-based, multi-billion-dollar company has begun to pay about $1 million to fast-track its project by bank-rolling city planners to work on it and by helping the city create the specific plan and conduct environmental reports.
These steps are necessary for the city to amend its long-term general plan, re-zone part of the area for the mall and expand its boundaries as part of an indefinite multi-step process that could stretch through 2010.
The city will partially reimburse the enormous mall-cinema-restaurant-hotel-office combo with fees paid by residents within the specific plan whose properties’ values will rise with the mall’s development. The larger the land, the larger the fee, Schwarz wrote in a sample letter to landowners outside of Westfield’s 108 acres, yet within the total 681 acres affected by the specific plan.
The task force is expected to meet 12 times throughout 2008 with the help of MIG, according to Community Development Director Wendie Rooney. After this, the various planning and application processes will last up to two years.
Since the council altered the make-up of the task force by reducing the number of councilmen and planning commissioners and adding four citizens-at-large, a school district representative and two open space advocates to the roster, the Chamber of Commerce has chimed in and asked to be on the task force, as well, according to Schwarz. This city council will decide it wants to formally include the chamber Dec. 17. One chamber member has applied, Schwarz said.
Only residents who live within the 681 acres can still apply to Schwarz to be on the task force by Wednesday. So far only two residents have applied for the two open positions, according to Schwarz.
