Jeff Martin didn’t know what it felt like to be a villain until his wife came back from her book club one night and told him people thought he was ruining Gilroy.
Until then, Martin, 63, thought he was helping to save the city he’s worked in, volunteered in and donated to for decades.
He’s the principal owner of the 721-acre parcel north of town now being considered for a development of 4,000 homes, two schools, a fire station and several parks. He and his partners who own the other 321 acres believe that a carefully planned and slowly grown development will bring needed housing and services to the city, with more offerings for residents—good sidewalks, roads, schools, parks and shopping—than they would get with a more piecemeal approach.
Martin contrasts his plans with the development of the expensive, gated 700-home Eagle Ridge community in the ’90s. The city got nothing from the developers, he said, except a golf course. “There isn’t even a park to walk your dog on,” he said.
In hindsight, Gilroy officials didn’t know how much value they could get from housing developers for the city, he said.
Martin’s proposal would bring a lot of new residents, but it would have 1,500 homes for seniors who wouldn’t use roads during commute hours and would offer the city valuable parks and schools. It would also have low-income housing and housing for families.
“The consequence of being big is you get more,” he said. “The community gets more.”
More people would attract better businesses, such as a Whole Foods Market, he added.
Also, Martin added, this isn’t some giant, quickly booming community. The city’s Residential Development Ordinance passed two decades ago allows a maximum of 400 houses to be built per year. While the city’s general plan favors putting more dense housing around the downtown transit corridor, the land there doesn’t allow for carefully planned developments, and it doesn’t have the capacity for so many homes.
His plans have spurred controversy, to say the least. The city’s Planning Commission unanimously opposed it. The City Council voted 4-3 to pursue annexation, but not before dozens of people spoke against it and 2,000 signed a petition asking to keep Gilroy a small town.
Opponents claimed the development was too big and being built too fast. They cast the developers and council supporters—including Mayor Perry Woodward, former mayor Don Gage, Mayor Pro Tempore Peter Leroe-Muñoz and council member Terri Aulman—as villains. Martin contends that building this development, which is called Rancho 101, over 10 or more years would be in line with the rate at which Gilroy has grown over the past two decades. It would also maintain a 3.5-mile greenbelt between Gilroy and Morgan Hill, he said.
The development would be slowed also by traffic concerns. It would likely need a new on-ramp and off-ramp at U.S. 101, which could take a decade to propose, approve and build.
Martin’s family has owned 400 acres of farmland north of town since the 1970s and over the years they have considered developing it. His father bought it for $20,000 an acre—about what it’s worth now as farmland, Martin said—intending to build a Silicon Valley-style business park there.
Many in the community were excited by the prospect of bringing industrial jobs to an area that needed them and still needs them, Martin said, but the proposal was rejected by the city in the early 1980s, something Martin says today he is happy about.
“So, from my point of view, my dad didn’t get what he wanted, but when we got shot down I could see something was going on that wasn’t what was anticipated. Silicon Valley wasn’t moving south.”
Instead, he realized, growing Silicon Valley businesses were heading to more business-friendly locations such as Austin, Texas, Raleigh, North Carolina or Dublin, Ireland.
Companies that optioned land around Gilroy for corporate headquarters, including Advanced Micro Devices, abandoned their plans around 1982. The land has been farmed since then, but Martin contends the soil isn’t the same quality as it is to the south and east of town. He said it’s a “B minus or C plus,” not prime land, and the rents he gets from pepper or pumpkin farmers just pay the taxes on the property.
If the deal goes through and the annexation is approved by the county’s Local Agency Formation Commission, the development could be worth up to $3 billion, according to Martin and one of his partners, developer Skip Spiering. They have invested more than $300,000 in environmental studies and permits for something they say could be a long shot.
And with at least 10 years to develop the land, Martin said he doesn’t expect to see much of the fruits of his labors, but he wants to leave a legacy for Gilroy, a well-designed place for people to live.
“It’s part of my DNA to do something with this property,” said Martin. “Something is going to happen with this property. If it doesn’t, then I die and turn to dust and I don’t know what else to do. It’s part of life. My dad took a chance on it becoming a business park and it’s not a business park, 35 or 40 years later. Will it be housing? Gilroy doesn’t really have any place else to grow. So either Gilroy has to put a fork in it or build Donald Trump’s wall or do something to say we don’t have room for any more people here.
“This isn’t a rampant growth proposal. We’re doing everything in the context of this controlled-growth system.” He later added: This is a mom and pop community. Moms and pops have to live someplace.”
