A controversial mall development has irritated one councilman to
the point he questioned a top city official’s loyalty, rekindling
the argument over the 660 acres of farmland east of Gilroy coveted
by developers.
By Chris Bone Staff Writer
Gilroy – A controversial mall development has irritated one councilman to the point he questioned a top city official’s loyalty, rekindling the argument over the 660 acres of farmland east of Gilroy coveted by developers.
Community Development Director Wendie Rooney came under fire by City Councilman Peter Arellano at the council’s Monday night study session after she recommended that the body change “660” from a land-use geared toward high-paying jobs and biotechnology firms, known as “campus industrial,” to one that accommodates everything from ceramics manufacturing plants to minor league baseball parks, with room for the controversial Westfield Mall project in between.
“I feel like I just heard a Westfield Mall rep presentation,” Arellano told Rooney. “Just because [660] is not going to be developed with campus industrial in 10 to 15 years doesn’t mean we have to bring in something else.
“You said satellite universities and racetracks could come down, but I heard the same thing five or six years ago: ‘IBM may come down. Cisco may come down.’ You’re talking about opening this land up again under the assumption that maybe we can get this or that, but why do we need to fill this land up? Once you start fitting anything in it, where are you going to stop?”
But City Administrator Jay Baksa implored Arellano to soothe his tone. “You don’t have to agree with the information,” Baksa said, “but let’s not attack [Rooney].”
Rooney defended her staff’s research and planning as mandated by the council’s own general plan for the city. Confusion arose two weeks ago when Arellano questioned Rooney’s continual planning and consultations with Westfield, but the majority of councilmen agreed Monday that she was doing her job appropriately.
“I don’t have a personal agenda here,” said Rooney, who later described herself as a “lightning rod” for criticism. “If the council wants to keep it campus industrial,” Rooney added, “then we’ll make the specific plan strictly campus industrial.”
Westfield, an Australian-based retail giant, has filed an application to develop 120 acres of the 660 for a mammoth mall, but assimilating it into the campus industrial area has been tricky since it doesn’t comport with the current land-use standards.
Those standards are designed to attract lucrative jobs, but Rooney said they aren’t coming. On top of this, other areas in north San Jose have lost time and money failing to lure companies such as Hewlett-Packard and Cisco after the dot-com bubble burst, according to Erik Hallgrimson, senior vice president of CORFAC International, a commercial property services company in Santa Clara.
“I think it’s the staff’s feeling now that things have definitely changed,” Rooney said before the council voted to give her planning department staff the go-ahead with further land-use research until the council members make their final decision at the end of the year.
“We do have large areas to accommodate large [campus industrial] developments, but our suggestion is that we allow a broader range of land uses that do not conflict with one another and allow us to be more flexible to the demands of the future rather than locking us into campus industrial,” Rooney said. “This is an opportunity for us to really think broadly about the needs of the community over the next 50 years. A sports facility could very well materialize. I think office space can be realized without a doubt, also commercial and educational [developments].”
The potential redesignation – known as “regional serving” for its emphasis on traffic containment and sense of community as opposed to campus industrial’s emphasis on large day-time employment centers that breed traffic – would make it easier for the city to give developers the green light because its broad scope frees city officials from having to make exceptions for projects such as Westfield’s.
But Councilman Dion Bracco said Rooney’s staff would be doing a “disservice” to the community without generating an array of options for the council to move forward, and Mayor Al Pinheiro agreed.
“Westfield’s application is on board and needs to be looked at,” Pinheiro said. “It boils down to this council at some point and time making a decision, and I’d rather staff come up with a number of things we can process than a staff with no creativity.”
The Hacienda Business Park in Pleasanton employed such creativity when it abandoned a campus-industrial-only approach that “couldn’t absorb the amenities people requested,” Hallgrimson said. “People don’t like working in research and development buildings, so if you truly want a high-end campus industrial tenant, then you need to address surrounding areas to make it desirable.”
But Arellano said installing amenities “out there” would compromise the council’s downtown revitalization efforts. “It will drain downtown even more,” he said.
Everything on the east side of U.S. 101 could eventually come under Rooney’s proposed land designation, Baksa said Tuesday, but for now city officials will limit it to 660, 200 acres of which will compose the Llagas Creek Preserve that Baksa said could become a recreational area such as the Uvas Creek levee.
But David Collier, a member of the environmental group Save Open Space Gilroy, said the council was missing another option altogether.
“Instead of just opening that land up, perhaps we should revisit the decision five years ago to turn that land into campus industrial,” Collier said. “We don’t want this to look like a bait and switch. We should leave the land in what I consider its best civic use, and that is natural and agricultural land.”
Chris Bone covers City Hall for The Dispatch. Reach him at 847-7109 or e-mail him at cb***@************ch.com.
