GILROY
– A fractured City Council approved Tuesday what has quickly
become this town’s most controversial housing project, pitting
development interests of two longtime Gilroy families with deep
Garlic Festival ties against one another. And now, one of the
families is seriously considering its legal opti
ons.
GILROY – A fractured City Council approved Tuesday what has quickly become this town’s most controversial housing project, pitting development interests of two longtime Gilroy families with deep Garlic Festival ties against one another. And now, one of the families is seriously considering its legal options.
City Council is allowing the family of Garlic Festival Godfather Val Filice to build a 60-unit development off Miller Avenue and Mesa Road, despite fervent protests by the son and former wife of Garlic Festival founder Don Christopher. The project, called Mesa Ridge, was recommended for approval by the city’s planning division, but was rejected earlier this month by the Gilroy Planning Commission – City Council’s premier citizen-based land-use advisory group.
Opponents have been fighting against the density of the project ever since the state required the development to preserve habitat for the California Tiger Salamander. The proposal lost a third of its housing acreage, but developers did not proportionally reduce the number of homes – 60 single-family units – the city OK’d for the formerly agricultural hillside.
Mesa Ridge construction can begin as early as this year.
Without salamander mitigation, the 60 homes in the Mesa Ridge development would have been spread over 19.2 acres. Now, the 60-home development is being shrink-wrapped over 8.5 acres.
“My expectations last night were for some sort of compromise, that there would be some reduced density and that Council would want to develop a design that would lead to a better quality of life,” Mesa Ridge opponent Karen Christopher said Wednesday. “That clearly did not happen.”
Filice family members, their lawyer and their developer vigorously defended the Mesa Ridge project Tuesday.
“These are not small lots; they are 6,500-square-foot average,” Mesa Ridge developer Skip Spearing said. “I do not believe those are small lots by any stretch of the imagination.”
Spearing, Val Filice’s daughter Toni Filice and Mesa Ridge attorney Tom Ruby also noted the project had gone through significant changes to accommodate environmental concerns. Mesa Ridge will construct a breeding pond for the salamander and will buy 20 acres of salamander habitat off-site.
Testing City Council
The Mesa Ridge project is not only testing the 30-year friendship of the Filices and Christophers. It was a litmus test for the new Council and Mayor Al Pinheiro’s consensus driven approach to solving the city’s problems. After Pinheiro could not convince Council to delay a decision on the project and ask the Mesa Ridge developer to come back with a less dense project, the dais voted 5-2 to approve Mesa Ridge as is.
“I was hoping to get the Council to get at least a response from the developer. I probably would have had that prerogative, but in my learning process as mayor I’m trying to give Council as much ability as possible to be part of the process,” Pinheiro said Wednesday. “What needs to be understood is we’re in our first walking stages as a new Council, but there will be another conversation about how we handled this issue.”
Councilman Roland Velasco, who also asked for a delay, joined Pinheiro on the losing end of two 5-2 votes related to the project.
The Christopher family and dozens of residents arrived en masse Tuesday night at City Hall to oppose the Filice’s Mesa Ridge project. The public hearing ran three hours, calling more than 20 speakers to address the city dais.
Opponents questioned everything from the scruples of the developer to the fairness of the City of Gilroy planning department.
In the end, Council went unswayed by the pleas for less housing density in the mostly pristine hillside. Council also rejected the claims that California’s environmental laws and Gilroy’s own planning policies went unheeded.
“I haven’t made up my mind as far as my next step is concerned, but no one ever walks away from all their options,” Christopher said in response to questions about whether she or other neighbors planned to sue the city.
The Christopher-Filice clash
The families share a mutual history that spans three decades, and they have always been on good terms, they say. In the infant stages of the Garlic Festival, Karen Christopher and Val Filice marketed the now world famous event on the “Dinah Shore Show” and the “Tonight Show” with Johnny Carson.
“Their daughter Valerie worked at our ranch (Christopher Ranch) for years,” Karen Christopher said. “It was not a casual relationship. We went to each other’s houses. We had dinner together in our homes.”
Nonetheless, the Christopher family is trying to ensure its own 12-unit development does not get negatively impacted by the larger, denser Mesa Ridge project brought forward by the Filices.
And both projects are severely complicated by mandatory preservation of the California Tiger Salamander.
The threatened amphibian has a breeding pond in the Eagle Ridge housing development – which neighbors Mesa Ridge to the north – but requires undisturbed grassland habitat stretching south to the Christopher property, which neighbors Mesa Ridge.
Between Eagle Ridge, Mesa Ridge and the Christopher property, the salamander has 100 acres preserved in its name west of Miller Avenue and Thomas Road. Eggs have been found in the breeding pond at Eagle Ridge, but some environmental consultants say they have never found salamanders on the Mesa Ridge property.
At various stages of the planning process, the Christophers were convinced Mesa Ridge would hamper the salamanders’ chances of survival, potentially complicating the mitigation the Christophers would have to do on their own project.
At one time, a breeding pond was not part of the Mesa Ridge project, while the Christophers had already given up more than half their property’s acres for salamander preservation.
A breeding pond showed up on a Mesa Ridge planning map presented to Council Tuesday. However, Karen Christopher says she doesn’t trust Spearing to include the pond in the final design.
Christopher says the documentation that holds Spearing to construct a breeding pond in his latest Mesa Ridge design are tenuous. An unsigned, printed e-mail message from the Department of Fish and Game to the city was the only document stating the latest design satisfied the state.
A breeding pond on the Mesa Ridge property is important to the Christophers because it ensures their preservation space will be useful.
For the Christophers, the pond issue is just one example of their frustration with city staff and the developer. They found it unacceptable the family was not contacted regarding the Mesa Ridge environmental review even though Karen Christopher’s name and property had been mentioned 55 times in those documents.
The Christophers also claimed that back when the Filices applied for housing permits under the city’s controlled growth program, the Mesa Ridge project was significantly different, on purpose. Based on that version of the project, which promised various amenities, Mesa Ridge was granted 60 permits.
“We’re not scandal mongers … but in this instance a lot of mistakes in objective judgment did happen,” said Robert Christopher, son of Karen.
Spearing vigorously defended himself and city staff against the claims Mesa Ridge got special treatment. Spearing noted that under future land-use plans in the city’s General Plan, Mesa Ridge is zoned for as many as six units per acre. It is now building three units per acre.
“In 30 years, I have never been accused or even partially mentioned that something illicit was happening on a process,” Spearing said. “We did not get special favors from the city on this. In fact it’s 100 percent opposite.”
Too many homes
Although the city’s controlled growth policy gives the Filice family the right to build up to 60 homes on the land, neighbors of the project said it was too dense in relation to the surrounding area.
Mesa Ridge opponents wanted the city to approve somewhere between 30 and 50 homes given the new layout of the development.
“This is an area of custom and semi-custom homes, not cookie-cutter homes. They’re beautiful homes, but there’s way too many of them,” resident Frank Flautt said. “It’s for the whole town to see yet another mistake.”
Flautt’s message apparently resonated with Pinheiro. The mayor pleaded with Council to establish its own “vision” for Gilroy and not be limited to the provisions in the existing Mesa Ridge plan.
He pressed Council to ask the developer to come back with a revised, less-dense plan that would be more palatable to the people who live in that area now. But the mayor’s effort was to no avail.
Councilmen argued that developments with homes clustered in one spot meets two critical community needs – more open space and more housing.
