GILROY
– Gated community residents gave a huge break to a debt-plagued
theme park – plus some perks for themselves – when a majority of
them voted
”
yes
”
to a land deal this week.
GILROY – Gated community residents gave a huge break to a debt-plagued theme park – plus some perks for themselves – when a majority of them voted “yes” to a land deal this week.
When more than 200 Eagle Ridge residents’ ballots were counted Thursday in a straw poll, 124 had voted yes and 88 no to the deal that would allow the Bonfante Gardens theme park to sell 33 acres to Eagle Ridge developer Shapell Industries, which plans to add 118 homes there.
The deal passed with 59-percent overall approval. If every Eagle Ridge Homeowners Association delegate votes with his or her district’s majority vote, as promised, Shapell will take the plan to the Gilroy City Council.
There’s a huge catch, however. Voters responded very differently to the ballot’s second question.
Seventy-seven percent of Eagle Ridge homeowners voted no to the deal if a third access road to their gated community is not included. The proposed road would reach from the west end of the enlarged Eagle Ridge to Hecker Pass Highway through Bonfante Gardens.
Only 46 voters said yes to the deal without the road. One hundred fifty-eight said no. All seven districts voted it down.
Shapell Division Manager Chris Truebridge announced the overall straw poll results this morning. The district-by-district vote breakdown was not made public as of press time.
Included in the Eagle Ridge addition is a three-acre park with a swimming pool, tennis courts and meeting room, amenities many Eagle Ridge residents have wanted for some time.
Truebridge said the result for the primary question was “kind of what I expected,” but he did not say the same for the response to the second.
“I think that is a pretty darn clear message,” he said of the denial of the plan without the access road.
With the road included, all but one district voted yes to the deal, including the powerful District 1, which holds 62 percent of the voting power. The only district in which a majority voted no was District 6, which is adjacent to where the 118 new homes would be built.
“That is not surprising. They’ve always said they were opposed to the project,” Truebridge said. “If the district delegates vote to annex this (Bonfante land), we’re still committed to working with District 6 to make this the best project possible.”
Technically, a June 9 vote by the delegates will determine whether the land deal goes to the City Council, but all of the homeowners association delegates have agreed to vote in line with the way the popular vote went in their districts.
Leading delegate David Light, of District 1, said the only way he would not go with the popular vote was if the winning side did not have a clear majority. In that case, he said, he would want to talk with the neighbors in his constituency before casting his vote.
A yes vote from Light is critical for Bonfante Gardens. In order for the land deal to pass, two-thirds of delegates votes (154 delegate votes out of 231) must be in favor. Light alone carries 142 votes.
The delegates’ vote was originally set for Saturday, but delegates pushed it back – mostly to give them time to talk with their constituents in case of a close vote but partly to avoid meeting on Memorial Day weekend, said Light, on vacation in Boise, Idaho.
If that passes, Shapell and Bonfante Gardens will start working on city approval, a process Truebridge said will probably take a year.
Bonfante Gardens needs the deal to go through so it can use the cash to help repay a $70 million pile of debt.
“I’m excited, obviously,” Bonfante board President Bob Kraemer said this morning from Cincinatti. “I take it as a vote of confidence that the overall plan was good for the homeowners. … If they had said they were not willing to do it, we were probably dead in the water.”
For Shapell, the deal represents a lucrative development opportunity. The deal would earn the company many millions of dollars since the 118 homes will sell for up to $700,000 each.
But they could do nothing without Eagle Ridge residents approval, according to homeowners’ association bylaws. Therefore, the park and Shapell have spent the last few months trying to convince Eagle Ridge homeowners that the land deal can be a win-win situation for all.
Park officials have stressed that if creditors took the park over, they could turn it into a “less neighbor-friendly” money-making affair. Immediately, some Eagle Ridge residents pictured themselves becoming neighbor to louder, more visible rides and attractions such as a water slide – a component of the park’s phase two expansion.
Also, many Eagle Ridge residents said they felt pressured to accept the 118 new homes into the community after they heard Bonfante Gardens officials say the real estate deal was the last-gasp effort to keep the park afloat.
Shapell mailed ballots to homeowners by May 14. Community Management Services, which oversees some Eagle Ridge operations, coordinated the ballot-counting Thursday.
