Planners Remain Optimistic

City planners said Coyote Valley plans won’t be derailed by a
few new politicians at City Hall.
San Jose – City planners said Coyote Valley plans won’t be derailed by a few new politicians at City Hall.

“If there’s going to be any change in that direction, it’s going to take the full council to make a decision about that,” said Laurel Prevetti, San Jose’s deputy planning director, speaking Thursday at a public forum at the Camden Community Center in San Jose.

San Jose’s effort to plan a high-density suburb in Coyote Valley began four years ago after Cisco abandoned plans for a sprawling campus in San Jose’s last bastion of open space. The community meeting was the latest in a series of forums to share information and gather feedback on the long-range plan to bring 25,000 homes and 50,000 industry-leading jobs north of Morgan Hill and west of U.S. 101. 

There’s been no official comment from new Mayor Chuck Reed’s office on the comprehensive plan and, so far, no indication of derailing it with a state-mandated environmental impact report due out in March.

But the arrival of new politicians at San Jose City Hall – city council members, Pete Constant and Sam Liccardo – could change the complexion of the council’s vote on Coyote Valley plans expected this fall.

Reed was a council member when the full council voted unanimously in 2002 to move forward with the whole Coyote Valley process.

There’s still plenty of work left for planners and the 20-member task force shaping the Coyote Valley vision. 

The biggest hurdle, the EIR, entails a 60-day public comment period. Considering the breadth of Coyote Valley plans – 5,000 acres of development, the realignment of Fisher Creek, and the construction of manmade lake for flood control – public feedback is apt to raise concerns. Cisco’s EIR, after all, drew litigation that failed in court but stalled the company’s development plans until they were economically infeasible.

But planners and task force members are confident they’ve dotted their “i’s” and crossed their “t’s” when it comes to Coyote Valley’s EIR, which seeks to appease environmentalists with anti-sprawl solutions. The plan is peppered with parking garages and vertical mixed-use buildings.

The other hurdle will be a discussion of job-triggers for housing construction. Under San Jose’s general plan, the construction of homes in the valley cannot occur before 5,000 jobs are available. The task force – a mixed group of land owners, residents and politicians – will take up the matter this spring. The pace of Coyote Valley’s development could hinge on what direction the task force takes, with some members leaning toward letting homes and jobs go in at once and others taking a more cautious approach.