Mayor Dennis Kennedy suggested Gavilan College swap land in
Coyote Valley with Morgan Hill School District to eliminate
concerns about the location of a new 3,000-student high school in
the heart of the proposed 50,000 resident development.
Morgan Hill – Mayor Dennis Kennedy suggested Gavilan College swap land in Coyote Valley with Morgan Hill School District to eliminate concerns about the location of a new 3,000-student high school in the heart of the proposed 50,000 resident development.
The college is looking at land in north Coyote Valley near the IBM plant on Bernal Road. Planners want Morgan Hill to build the high school in the center of the development, near the proposed lake.
Gavilan Trustee Mark Dover had not heard about the mayor’s suggestion, adding, “It’s kind of out of left field.”
“Gavilan College should be concerned about what’s best for Gavilan College – not the Morgan Hill school district,” Dover said. “We are looking for the ideal site for Gavilan College … and if that’s the ideal site for us …”
Morgan Hill School Board trustees invited San Jose planners to Morgan Hill for a workshop Tuesday night to address their concerns and give feedback to the task force charged with defining the details of large-scale development just north of the city.
The Coyote Valley Specific Plan currently calls for a 3,000-student high school to be built in the center of the project near the lake. Trustees, however, say the high school is larger than they want to build and manage and the location raises serious security and parking concerns for students who will eventually attend the new school once homes are built. Coyote Valley is part of the Morgan Hill Unified School District which extends north to Bernal Road in South San Jose.
Designer Doug Dahlin told trustees that planners intend the high school campus to be an object of “civic pride” for the new community and would draw residents of the pedestrian-friendly development to the campus for performing arts, sports fields and stadiums.
Trustees, however, expressed concerns not only about the size of the new school but also its location.
“One (concern) is security,” said MHUSD Trustee Kathy Sullivan. “That would be a huge campus. It would be difficult to have line-of-sight of all the students. How could you be sure they stayed on campus? How could you know who came on campus?”
Parking was also a major concern for trustees who worried it would be difficult to provide adequate parking for students while keeping it affordable for the district. Parking and traffic concerns were a common theme throughout the workshop, with Dahlin emphasizing the fact that the design is urban, and the idea is for “a pedestrian and transit-oriented” community. Trustees believe that parents and students will still rely on their own vehicles for transportation regardless of efforts to encourage walking.
Trustees also discussed the other schools – nine elementary and two middle schools – that would be necessary for the development. Through subcommittee meetings, an agreement was reached to build smaller schools, instead of the original proposal of fewer, larger schools. The elementary schools would be on nine acres and house 600 students. The middle schools would be on about 15 acres and house 800 students.
Trustees are also having difficulty accepting the urban nature of the development requiring smaller school campuses in multi-level buildings.
“There will be no one-story buildings in Coyote Valley,” Dahlin said, adding even residential buildings would contain at least two stories.
Morgan Hill resident Robert Bennich questioned if residents and students would be better served by the district staying out of the development entirely.
“I’m not saying that the Coyote Valley plan is wrong, but simply, is this what the Morgan Hill School Board wants to be responsible for?” Bennich asked. “Do the people of Morgan Hill want to be responsible for building 13 new schools in the City of San Jose, in a densely populated urban environment whose residents will outnumber and outvote the people of Morgan Hill?”
