Politics

Fed up with early morning noise and traffic from ongoing construction, residents of one of Gilroy’s newest high-end subdivisions woke up to a new neighbor this week.It’s a manned guard shack that showed up in the middle of the roundabout at the entrance to Meritage Homes’ Heartland housing development.It’s designed to control the flow of construction-related traffic and keep noise levels down in the before-dawn hours.But a city official Tuesday said it must be moved.“I understand why they did this but it’s not in a safe location, so we will ask the developer to move this to a safer spot until they finish construction activities, Rick Smelser said in an email. He is Gilroy’s director of public works and city engineer.The playhouse-size structure was set up on city property, the roundabout island at the corner of West Third Street and Cobblestone Court, just west of Santa Teresa Boulevard and the Village Green senior housing community.A spokesman for C&C Security said Meritage requested the manned booth after receiving complaints from new residents of the $870,000 to $943,000 homes.They’ve complained about pre-dawn noise and traffic from contractors building more new homes in developments that stretch roughly along Hecker Pass Highway west from Santa Teresa to Burchell Road.Chapter 16, section 31 of the city code prohibits loud noise of any kind that disturbs another person in their home between the hours of 10 p.m. and 7 a.m. Wayne Spalding, vice president of human resources for the Fremont-based C&C Security, said a uniformed guard arrives early in the morning to make sure no one begins work before 7 a.m.The guard then patrols the neighborhood and construction areas from a vehicle, he said.The project’s new construction manager requested that the guard shack be placed on the roundabout island, according to Spalding.An early morning observer to the area would witness not only the arrival of construction workers, but also large and small trucks loaded with everything from pre-fabricated housing rafters to roofing materials and landscaping equipment and plants.The long, new stretch of W 3rd Street, with at least one elementary school bus stop, also has become the scene of high-speed driving, the almost universal running of the stop sign at Rosemary Drive by residents, construction workers and truck drivers, and numerous incidents of cars and trucks going the wrong way at the roundabout—some trucks doing so because they are too long to negotiate the sharp curves of the roundabout.At the Gilroy Police Department, Capt. Kurt Svardal said the guard shack arrangement between the private security firm and the development company does not involve police, although he said he was “a little surprised” by the location of the structure on the roundabout.Smelser said that while he was unaware of the guard shack until asked about it Tuesday by the Dispatch, builders are legally allowed to take steps to secure their projects and equipment even if it involves city property.“During construction, before the city has fully accepted the construction, the contractor has every right to protect their equipment,” he said.As for traffic and noise associated with building activities, he said, “They have every right to control what is going on during construction; if they want to control construction activity, I can see that,” Smelser added.A spokesperson for the Meritage did not return phone calls seeking comment.   

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