In a nod to environmentalists, the city council again altered
and expanded the make-up of an important task force that will help
decide the future of farmland east of the city.
In a nod to environmentalists, the city council again altered and expanded the make-up of an important task force that will help decide the future of farmland east of the city.
Residents now have until Jan. 31, 2008, to apply for a position on the East Gilroy Specific Plan Task Force. The need to craft the East Gilroy Specific Plan became necessary when the Westfield Group applied to build a 1.5 million-square-foot mall on 108 of 681 acres that still belong to Santa Clara County. The plan will dictate the future development of that land located south and east of the existing Gilroy Premium Outlets.
Monday night the council appointed Councilmembers Peter Arellano and Perry Woodward to the task force and also added two new positions to the now-17-member roster: an additional adjacent property owner and a representative from the Chamber of Commerce, which elected board member David Boll.
Part of the reason the council decided to extend the application deadline centered around the fact that local environmentalists have refused to participate. They purposefully missed the initial application deadline earlier this month because they say they want no part in the task force they claim will operate under the assumption that building a mega mall is inevitable, not preventable.
Councilmembers Arellano and Cat Tucker – who will serve as the alternate council representative on the task force – have sympathized with this point and said the commercial developer’s application has tainted the task force.
David Collier and Connie Rogers agree, but the two members of Save Open Spaces Gilroy have still promised to attend the task force meetings as watchdogs.
“We will not apply to be on the task force because that would imply that we’re willing and in favor of developing this open space, which is in a flood plain and environmentally sensitive, and we feel that any development (of the 681 acres) is premature because the city already has hundreds of undeveloped acres within the city limits,” Rogers said. “But we are intending to be watchdogs for the whole process and will attend all the meetings.”
The city-hired consultant (Moore, Iacofano, Goltsmann) that has compiled a matrix of applicants wrote to Schwarz and Planning Division Manager Bill Faus that city staff and MIG contacted members of SOS Gilroy repeatedly, but to no avail, according to MIG Program Director Joan Chaplick.
SOS’s recalcitrance did not discourage Mayor Al Pinheiro Monday night, though he acknowledged some residents’ poor perception of the task force.
“I think one of the things that has turned everybody off is that we are proceeding as if Westfield’s proposed project is a done deal,” Pinheiro told the council Monday night. “This council needs to set a straight path that this is not a done deal – what’s best for Gilroy, not what’s best for Westfield mall.”
But Boll, the Chamber of Commerce representative, said he has no preconceptions going into the task force and that his company, Heartwood Cabinets, works with residents, so he has no ties to developers, he said.
“I don’t know any of the players. I’m a small farmer myself,” said Boll, referring to his 6-acre vineyard on Hecker Pass Highway. “I have a very strong sense of land stewardship.”
Even without environmental folks on the task force, Councilman Craig Gartman said some of the other applicants could possibly fill their shoes: Three people expressed agricultural tourism and/or open space as areas of interest on their applications, Gartman noted.
But Councilman Bob Dillon likened the council’s conciliatory gesture to forcing a horse to drink.
“We can’t chase the environmentalists down,” Dillon said. “They were invited to serve.”
Local conservative activist Mark Zappa took it one step further earlier this month when he said that the environmentalists were improperly speaking for land owners. Zappa has applied to be on the task force as an adjacent property owner because his office sits on Camino Arroyo, across the street from the 681-acre swath of land.
“The preservationists want to keep it, as they call it, pristine farmland even though many owners (within the 681 acres) want to see development,” Zappa said, adding that environmentalists did not own the concerned land and had no right to hold land-owners hostage to their open space dictates.
Environmentalists or no environmentalists, Arellano once again reminded City Planner Deborah Schwarz – who works specifically on the Westfield project for the city – that he wanted her to remind the yet-to-be-formed task force of one thing: They are to analyze 681 acres of mostly agricultural land east of the city in an objective manner and should not see development as a foregone conclusion. Preserving the land is still possible, he said.
At one point Monday night, Schwarz approached the podium quickly to remind Arellano, in turn, that her loyalties lie with the city, not Westfield.
The Australian-based, multibillion-dollar Westfield Group has already begun to pay about $1 million to fast-track its project by bank-rolling city planners such as Schwarz to work on it and by helping the city conduct environmental reports and create the specific plan.
Three of the panel’s 15 applicants do not live in Gilroy. One is a Los Angeles-based Westfield representative, and the two others are a land-use consultant and developer who want to represent landowners and personal property, respectively.
Schwarz and MIG will continue to vet all the applicants and then compile a refined matrix before the council interviews candidates Feb. 11., according to Schwarz.
