Politics

Gilroy’s urban growth boundary (UGB) initiative has more than the required number of signatures needed to qualify for the November ballot.

Gilroy Library is running a reading program that will make kids feel like they are on a gameshow.

Gilroy’s urban growth boundary (UGB) initiative has more than the required number of signatures needed to qualify for the November ballot.

In a move that has been lauded by downtown property owners and the association that represents downtown businesses, the city’s stance on unreinforced masonry (URM) buildings is about to get a little more flexible.“The city’s goal is to get all [of the URM buildings] under compliance so that we can move forward, get them all occupied, and downtown hopping,” said Susan Ostrander, interim development services manager.“We are starting to get more interest in downtown,” she continued. “A sign of the economy in turnaround.”Currently, there are 15 URM buildings downtown, she said, all at different stages of compliance with the city’s current URM ordinance to ensure earthquake safety.“Some have never been occupied, some have been vacated. Some are working on planning permits toward getting their facades done, while others have completed the planning stage and entered in the building permit stages for retrofit work,” she said.At its last meeting, the City Council moved forward with staff recommendations to make the city’s URM ordinance easier for downtown property owners to comply with, in order to make the necessary upgrades to their buildings while ensuring public safety.The state’s URM building law requires local jurisdictions such as Gilroy to inventory all potentially hazardous buildings and establish a local program to mitigate the hazards. In 2006, Gilroy amended its URM ordinance to require one of two levels of mitigation: a “mandatory” minimum retrofit or a “voluntary” full retrofit.What turned out to be contentious, and according to Ostrander’s staff report, “counterproductive,” was a rule in the ordinance that mandated a URM building that has been vacant for 24 hours remain unoccupied until a minimum or full retrofit is completed.“The 24-hour requirement has resulted in high vacancies among the URM buildings,” according to the report presented to the council.Ostrander, working with concerns presented at recent URM Task Force meetings, suggested changing the 24-hour time period to 120 days continuous vacancy before the retrofit requirement kicked in. Staff also recommended the city accept bonds at 100 percent for URM retrofit activities, instead of the standard 200 percent.Most important, the amended ordinance gives city building officials discretion in issuing a temporary certificate of occupancy to eligible vacant URM buildings prior to the building being retrofitted.“We wanted the ability to—in certain circumstances when health and safety is not at risk—allow temporary occupancy during retrofitting,” said Ostrander. “Buildings that have been vacant for a long time are losing rental income and can’t pay for a retrofit—there is no winning in that situation.”Gary Walton, downtown property owner and member of various URM committees over the years said it was “unfortunate” it took the city 10 years to get back to what state law required.“No other city in the state prohibits tenants from occupying a URM building after 24 hours being empty,” he said, adding that he understood the city’s original intent was to get the repairs done, but the strict timeframe and the inability of owners to occupy their buildings while retrofitting, was a high barrier to those who didn’t have the ready capital to make the required changes.“You have to be reasonable,” he said.None of Walton’s downtown holdings are URM buildings.“Ten years of non-economic activity can mean up to $1 million in lost revenue,” said Jose Montes, owner of four buildings downtown, including the old Dick Bruhn’s location—home of the soon-to-open used bookstore, BookBuyers.“So technically you already lost your building since you’ve lost more in rent than what your building is worth. And you are still paying property taxes and insurance. Not to mention the cost of damages to the [now vacant] building and penalties.”The city has come a long way since an earlier version of the ordinance placed a $60,000 fine on each URM building out of compliance.“Back then we had 25 URM buildings downtown and you could either pay the fine or tear down the building for $45,000,” recalled Walton. “It would have torn out the heart of downtown. So they brought down the fee to $15,000.”That was in 2011, the last time the ordinance was amended. Less than a year ago, the city was issuing arrest warrants to out-of-town URM property owners for non-compliance.The tough tactic, spurred by former mayor Don Gage, left some rancour between downtown property owners, local lawmakers and city staff, especially when it turned out official letters from the city never got to the property owners in question.“We’ve been making progress in bringing owners to the table over the last three years,” said Walton, who also serves on the board of the Downtown Business Association, which sent a letter of support to the city regarding the ordinance amendments.“They didn’t understand the difficulty they created by removing the stream of income property owners could have used to make improvements.”Walton added: “There are some things they did right and others they did wrong, but it’s done. You can’t change the past, only change the future, and this is a good first step in doing something positive.”For his part, Montes is excited about the changes.“I see new staff, a new City Council and mayor, a new city administrator and they all realize that new steps needed to take place before we got downtown going again,” he said.The first reading of the amended URM ordinance will take place at the next City Council meeting on Monday, June 20.

A Clinton is running for President and Donald Trump is all over the media headlines, in this crazy world where old is new again, the ’90s are back, and downtown Gilroy is getting a bookstore.

After nearly two years of reaching out to local municipalities and compiling a laundry list of transportation issues throughout the county, the 12-member VTA board voted unanimously to place a 30-year, countywide half-cent sales tax measure on the November ballot.

Remodeling at a Gilroy low-income housing complex has left apartments with bathrooms inaccessible to handicapped residents, a violation of federal law according to one man.A city inspector signed off on upgrades at the Plum Tree West apartments on Montebello Drive, but the work does not comply with the Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA) designed to ensure access indoors and outside for the handicapped, resident Tim Holliday alleged.Holliday, 41, has been wheelchair bound for 30 years because of an affliction that causes spasms that paralyze his legs.“They took away the showers and put in bathtubs and they put plates over emergency buttons so we can no longer use them,” Holliday said.“A young man in a wheelchair fell down in his tub and now he uses a neighbor’s shower, another man is 94,” said Sally Armendariz of the Community Agency for Resources, Advocacy and Services, or CARAS, the Gilroy nonprofit assisting complex residents, some of whom have live-in caregivers.At least 15 residents whose apartments have been remodeled so far in the 70-unit complex met last week to compare notes, which mostly concern bathrooms but include other complaints, such as access to stoves.Violet Guliza is 90. She has severe arthritis in her legs and needs a walker to get around. Before the remodel, her one-bedroom, one-bathroom unit had a walk-in shower that made getting in and out easy despite her disability, she said.But showers were replaced by tubs with shower heads and Guliza cannot lift her legs high enough to step over and into the tub, she said.“I can’t even understand why they remodeled it,” Guliza said, noting her apartment was in good condition before the work.Residents were given checks for hotels and meals then moved out of their units during the initial two-week project, according to Holliday and Guliza. They stayed with relatives.Their units were remodeled in early May and others are under construction now, they said.At Gilroy City Hall, community development director Kristi Abrams said the city “absolutely” will revisit the apartment if residents request a re-inspection. She said none of the residents have called her about the issue.However, she said, “There is no code requirement that the city can enforce so the units are accessible. We have no legal remedy, the code has no requirement for all units to be accessible in any type of complex.”She said the city inspector who approved the remodels is its specialist on such matters, although she said he still is working at getting official certification as an access specialist.The complex is for income-qualified people age 62 and over. It’s insured and operated under rules administered by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and is owned by Preservation Partners Management Group Inc. of Torrance, California.That development group specializes in the acquisition, rehabilitation and preservation of HUD and California Housing Finance Agency insured and assisted affordable housing developments, according to its website.“PPD provides the opportunity to rehabilitate and permanently preserve existing affordable housing assets by offering owners the opportunity to realize ‘market values’ upon sale. Since our formation in 1999, we have utilized low-income housing tax credits and tax-exempt bond financings to acquire and rehabilitate 29 properties representing 3,130 rental units in Washington, Virginia and throughout California,” the website reads.The firm did not return calls requesting comment on complaints by the Plum Tree West residents.To support his contention that the newly installed features do not comply with federal law, Holliday cited a top federal law enforcement agency on the matter of bathtub controls.“I found a 2010 ADA Standards for Accessible Design from the Department of Justice,” he wrote in an email. “According to section 607.5 it reads: ‘Controls, other than drain stoppers, shall be located on an end wall. Controls shall be between the bathtub rim and grab bar, and between the open side of the bathtub and the centerline of the width of the bathtub.”The newly installed tubs all have control knobs on the far back wall. They are unreachable by people with disabilities, according to Holliday and Guliza.Other problems involve shower heads that are mounted just over four feet off the floor, which Holliday says is too low; inaccessible garbage disposals and ovens whose design make it impossible for him to reach the racks from his wheelchair when the door is open.Abrams said she wants to review the Justice Department citation. She cautioned that such sections cannot be taken out of context and have to be considered along with other parts of the law.“I’m not saying it’s right or wrong. We cannot just take little abstract out, we have to look at the whole (ADA),” she said.

Email is for work, Facebook is where you find out about local events and Instagram is where you go to learn about new products by millennial brand ambassadors.

The Gilroy Unified School District will receive $170 million from city property owners to build a new elementary school and update two middle schools.