GILROY
– A special advisory committee helping to decide the rules and
regulations governing downtown Gilroy has decided to keep up its
work despite a recent city decision that will delay the hiring of a
consultant to help them.
GILROY – A special advisory committee helping to decide the rules and regulations governing downtown Gilroy has decided to keep up its work despite a recent city decision that will delay the hiring of a consultant to help them.
“Everyone wanted to proceed,” said Gary Walton, a local builder who is chairman of the task force that’s helping to assemble the Downtown Specific Plan. “We’re going to proceed forward and do as much preliminary work as we can.”
The group faced a decision about whether to proceed or delay its work for up to six months after the City Council decided Monday to proceed with a $280,000 federal grant application.
If awarded, city officials said the grant could help pay for a consultant to draft the formal plan and some expanded economic and marketing studies. More importantly, it could potentially lead to more money for capital projects down the line as well.
But the grants won’t be awarded until October, and under application rules the city can’t actually start drafting the plan – which it was going to hire a consultant to help do – until then.
The consultant the city is likely to hire – which has already helped design streetscape improvements for Monterey Street – has much experience on assembling specific plans, Walton said. But task force members already have a deep knowledge of the community as well.
“They know the economics, they know the demographics … ” he said. “It’s a pretty big committee, and there’s a lot of knowledge there.”
The task force – which includes downtown property and business owners, business representatives and citizens – has now split into four subcommittees to begin exploring four challenge areas for downtown revitalization:
• lighting and sidewalk repair
• parking constraints, neighborhoods and building requirements
• incentives, impact fees and economic development, and
• unreinforced masonry buildings and seismic retrofitting.
“They all believe in the importance of a thriving downtown,” Walton said of the task force members. “They’ve committed themselves to 12 to 18 months in time and energy for the cause, and now they may have to go a little longer, so I think it speaks highly of all the members.”
