GILROY—While the Gilroy portion of the California High-Speed Rail System will be one of the last built in the $68 billion system, city officials and a consulting firm are steaming ahead with environmental planning for a station downtown Gilroy or on prime agricultural land in east Gilroy.
Following a 6-1 vote by the Gilroy City Council last week, with Councilman Dion Bracco dissenting, Santa Ana-based environmental consulting firm PlaceWorks, Inc. and city staff are spearheading an effort over the next 28 months to examine how either alignment—with a station in the heart of the city or east of the Gilroy Premium Outlets—would impact existing businesses, traffic and parking.
The council also voted 6-1, with Bracco again dissenting, at the April 20 meeting to form a high-speed rail advisory committee of city commissioners, merchants and three residents and to allocate $93,000 from the public works budget for environmental planning.
The state rail authority gave the city a grant of $600,000 for this phase of the planning, it will cost an additional $185,121—for which the authority might pay half, according to city officials.
Planning Division Manager Sue Martin likened the earmarking of $93,000 in local funds as a “placeholder” until the funding is sorted out.
By all indications, construction is still many years away.
“(The CHSRA) said they might break ground here within the next decade. Whether or not that happens remains to be seen, but it’s part of the plan,” Gilroy Councilman Perry Woodward said.
Woodward at the April 20 meeting offered to chair the advisory committee as the council’s lone representative, citing his current positions on the boards of Caltrain and the Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority.
The council will appoint individuals to the advisory committee later this summer, after interviews with the council take place on June 1, according to City Clerk Shawna Freels.
While that committee will make recommendations to the council and the council will make recommendations to the California High-Speed Rail Authority, the latter will decide the location of Gilroy’s station, City Administrator Tom Haglund said.
The review process will look at a downtown station and one that would use 200 acres of agricultural land in eastern Gilroy, just east of the outlets shopping area. In 2011, the city and a majority of residents who participated in the public planning process preferred a downtown station.
Downtown has a “greater need for revitalization” than the other option and could serve as a “valuable catalyst effect” in the heart of the city, according to city documents.
The downtown station, based on preliminary plans, would be east of the existing Caltrain Station along Monterey Street.
The environmental report will analyze the impacts of an at-grade station, which would run alongside existing Caltrain and Union Pacific Railroad lines in Gilroy, or a trench option that would run tracks beneath ground level.
Either way, dozens of commercial, industrial or residential buildings downtown stand in the way of the planned rail system.
An at-grade option would impact at least 12 existing light industrial buildings, according to city documents, while a trench option would affect at least 23 light industrial structures, five residential buildings and two commercial structures.
In the Central Valley, the CHSRA has used eminent domain to acquire land in the system’s path.
While no Gilroy property owners have been notified that eminent domain may be used to acquire their land, a CHSRA spokesman confirmed this week, they could within the next few years.
But before any notices go out to impacted property owners notifying them eminent domain will be used, the local environmental studies expected to take 28 months must be completed and an alignment must be formally selected, rail authority spokesman Ricci Graham told the Dispatch.
“We’ve got a ways to go before we engage in that process,” he said.
Preparation of the environmental impact report will also examine impacts to existing businesses, traffic conditions, parking and many other sectors. PlaceWorks, Inc. will develop three separate plans for station locations and identify the rail system’s preferred alignment in Gilroy.
The CHSRA estimates the demand for parking in the Garlic Capital alone could range between 1,000 and 6,000 spaces per day once the entire system is complete. Only 20 percent of the spaces required to accommodate those riders is in direct vicinity of where the station downtown is proposed, so the construction of parking structures and use of shuttles to ferry riders from parking spaces further away would be required, planning documents show.
Later this summer, the rail authority plans on hosting public meetings to elicit feedback in both Gilroy and Morgan Hill—where a downtown station is also proposed, according to Graham.
The city of Gilroy is seeking applications from registered voters within city limits to fill three open seats. The group will be comprised of one council member, one planning commissioner, one bicycle pedestrian commissioner, one historic heritage commissioner, one Gilroy Chamber of Commerce member, one Downtown Business Association member—and three city residents, including two who live within the station planning area.
Resident applicants may not be affiliated with any of the other organizations participating on this committee, according to the city, and the group will meet a minimum of 5 times.
The deadline to apply is 5 p.m. May 26. The city council will hold interviews during the June 1 meeting in council chambers of City Hall. For more information or to apply, visit www.cityofgilroy.org or stop by City Hall, located at 7351 Rosanna Street. Applications must be submitted to City Clerk Shawna Freels.
