Our neighbor to the north, the Cilty of San Jose, has a population of 1,016,479 (Jan. 1, 2015) while the City of Gilroy’s was 48,820 (April 1, 2010) and is currently above 53,000. This is a huge population difference.
In size (area), the City of San Jose is 179.97 square miles, while the City of Gilroy is 16.156 square miles. Again, a huge difference.
But, in reality, San Jose and Gilroy are similar in many ways.
A recent, eye opening San Jose Mercury News editorial (May 1, “San Jose needs to stop bleeding industrial land”), warned its readers and its elected leaders about a coming attack on San Jose’s General Plan for “land use” by developers whose only desire is to develop more profitable residential housing at the expense of industrial and commercial development that brings in much more sorely needed tax revenue to the city’s general fund (property tax revenue is a net negative for the city’s general fund).
San Jose, like Gilroy, needs a significant increase in tax revenue to repair its streets and sidewalks, hire more police officers, and address many other serious needs.
San Jose’s problem is that it does not have enough land to develop the significantly larger industrial base it needs to generate the needed tax revenue, and what is left, the residential developers want, which would only make San Jose’s problem worse.
The incentives for the residential developers are huge as any planning changes they can convince the city council to approve will allow them to rake in millions. Industrial land is dirt-cheap and if the developers can convince the council to change the general plan, the developers can flip the land for a 300 to 400 percent profit…a pretty good deal for a day’s work, you think?
Fortunately, while Gilroy is much smaller in size and population, it does have a significant amount of agricultural and undeveloped industrial land.
The residential developers know this and they want it for their own needs. Just like in San Jose. Does this make them bad people? No! This is what they do for a living. They are builders and they hire people who are in need of good paying jobs.
But, the real question is, “is this good for the citizens of Gilroy and the future of the city?” and the answer is a resounding…No!
Gilroy needs more tax revenue to repair its streets and sidewalks, maintain its parks and create new ones, hire more police and firefighters, purchase firetrucks and build more stations in the future and improve the downtown business district and turn it into a viable destination for those who live in Gilroy and hopefully draw tourists.
To be able to do all of this and more, Gilroy needs to focus more on commercial and industrial development and less on resi-dential development. We cannot allow the residential developers to suck our land use dry for their purposes.
The future of Gilroy’s financial viability could very well depend on the actions the city council takes on the General Plan on May 18.
Ronald L. Kirkish is a retired semiconductor engineer and 31-year Gilroy resident. He can be reached at (408) 309-9390 or
hy*******@Ch*****.net
. He wrote this piece for the Gilroy Dispatch.
