Environmental group’s report says county has 75,000 acres at
risk of development
Gilroy – South Valley’s open spaces are under some of the greatest pressure for development of any land in the Bay Area, according to a new report by the Greenbelt Alliance.
The report released today by the nonprofit environmental group provides a snapshot of development trends across nine Bay Area counties. It states that Santa Clara County has more than 75,000 acres of greenbelt space at risk of development in the next 30 years. That represents a sizable chunk of the 400,000 “at risk” acres the group identified in the Bay Area.
The report calls 6,800 acres in Coyote Valley a “hot spot” facing the highest risk of development. San Jose officials hope to create 25,000 homes and 50,000 jobs on the land in the southern reaches of the city.
The report also ranks the greenbelt surrounding Gilroy as high risk, pointing out such long-term threats as a city decision in 2002 to set the stage for development of 660 acres of farmland east of the Gilroy Premium Outlets. Real estate investors have already purchased nearly all of that land in anticipation of future development efforts.
The reports also points to the more distant threat to South Valley’s open space posed by a San Diego-based developer and his partners in a local Indian tribe, who continue to push federal legislators for help in developing the 6,500-acre Sargent Ranch just south of Gilroy. Previous efforts to bring golf courses and hillside homes to the property have withered in the face of opposition from county supervisors.
The Greenbelt report also states that 1,250 acres of farmland outside of Morgan Hill are threatened by the city’s bulging borders.
In addition to Santa Clara County, the report looked at development trends in the counties of Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, Napa, San Francisco, San Mateo, Solano and Sonoma.
Within that group, lands in Santa Clara and three other counties – Contra Costa, Solano and Sonoma – have the highest potential for sprawl development in the future, according to Michele Beasley, South Bay field representative for the Greenbelt Alliance. In Santa Clara County, the group hopes to blunt that trend through a ballot initiative in the fall that will ask voters to restrict development on county farmlands and hillsides.
And it’s not all bad news, Beasley pointed out. Land preservation efforts have helped protect more than a million acres of greenbelt in the Bay Area, and many cities are adopting tighter growth controls and making efforts to avoid sprawl by growing inward.
“Gilroy is trying to beef up their downtown and create more compact, mixed-use development along their downtown corridor,” Beasley pointed out. “That’s the type of development we’d like to see more of, because it eases the pressure to build on county farmlands and hillsides.”
To view the Greenbelt report online, go to www.greenbelt.org. For a hard copy, call Beasley at 983-0856.
