GILROY
– They moved blocks from one location to another. Then they
moved them again.
GILROY – They moved blocks from one location to another. Then they moved them again.
The nearly 150 participants at the Coyote Valley Task Force and community meeting shifted blocks representing houses and commercial buildings around a mock development to create their ideal neighborhoods.
“The people came and, although it was a long day, people stayed the whole time,” said Eileen Goodwin, who facilitates the community workshops and outreach.
Coyote Valley eventually will become a new community of up to 80,000 people, with 50,000 homes and 25,000 jobs just north of Morgan Hill that the city of San Jose is planning to build. The goal of the development is to create a walk-able, transit-oriented community where people can live and work.
At Saturday’s six-hour meeting at the San Jose McEnery Convention Center, three draft plans were unveiled featuring three Monterey Road over-crossings and two under-crossings, along with a parkway attached to a southern over-crossing.
Differences between the three drafts include the routing of the public transit system, Fisher Creek and the parkway.
The area around Santa Teresa Boulevard and Bailey Avenue would serve as the new community’s downtown. As the project stands now, housing is planned for the area south of Bailey Avenue, commercial to the north leaving the rural greenbelt and surrounding hillsides untouched.
The majority of feedback has been to add work areas in the middle area and residential areas in the northern part, Goodwin said, blurring the line.
Although most of the task force members favored drafts two and three at their meeting Monday, the different elements in the drafts are interchangeable, Goodwin said.
Gilroy City Councilman Paul Correa saw the plans at the meeting Monday night and said he liked the idea of a self-sustaining development.
“One of the things that stood out to me is the town center and the water element (lake), it would be very creative in creating a self-sustaining community with its own identity,” Correa said.
Morgan Hill Mayor Dennis Kennedy said the three drafts are too difficult and detailed to determine a single preference. However, he noticed one feature he didn’t like.
“I am concerned about the fact that Santa Teresa Boulevard will come into a T-section,” he said of the road, which is an alternate route for commuters.
Goodwin said the routing of Santa Teresa depends on the shape of the lake, appearing in drafts two and three, which hasn’t been determined yet.
Kennedy also would like the light-rail system to be extended, or least have the potential to be extended, as far south as Gilroy.
Planners will be looking into the feasibility of each of the three options this summer. Then, another community meeting will be held Aug. 14 to draft a final plan. The San Jose City Council will view the final draft at its Sept. 21 meeting with final approval to follow.
“Once the preferred alternative is chosen this fall, then a full-blown environmental impact report will occur,” Goodwin said. “There’s a year’s worth of time to do that analysis.”
Final approval of the Coyote development is expected in late 2005. The project won’t actually be built for at least another 20 years.
