The faster thousands of homes rise in Coyote Valley, the sooner
the city of San Jose can afford to create a
”
sense of place
”
in the region just north of Morgan Hill, members of a key task
force agreed this week.
San Jose – The faster thousands of homes rise in Coyote Valley, the sooner the city of San Jose can afford to create a “sense of place” in the region just north of Morgan Hill, members of a key task force agreed this week.
That doesn’t mean the 3,400-acre project will start overnight. But when it does, members of the Coyote Valley Specific Plan Task Force said Monday night that development may need to move forward in strides rather than rather than baby steps. And that could mean, for instance, three phases of development instead of six, with 10,000 homes in the first phase instead of 5,000.
“If we want to create a sense of place, it’s a huge capital investment,” said Steve Speno, a member of the task force crafting the 30-year plan to bring 25,000 homes and 50,000 jobs to Coyote Valley.
San Jose and its neighbors must prepare for a trade-off between “incrementalization and precision,” Speno said, and the “need for money for infrastructure.”
A budget crafted four years ago estimated that basic services such as roads and sewers, along with “place-making” elements such as a 55-acre lake and public parks, would cost between $1.5 and $1.6 billion.
While task force members await updated cost estimates for those features, they agreed Monday night that San Jose would need millions of dollars up front to prevent Coyote Valley from turning into a faceless enclave of tract homes.
At the same time, the area must have libraries, public parks and other basic community services before proceeding with an extensive build-out of homes, according to Supervisor Don Gage, the representative for South County and an appointee to the task force.
“What happens to the people in (the homes)? Where do the kids go?” he asked Monday night. “We’re not talking about all the other things you need to make that a livable community.”
Until this week, city planners had pegged the build-out of such features to a half-dozen construction phases – all ultimately linked to the creation of jobs.
The task force agreed Monday night that job creation should remain the primary constraint on home construction, but they have yet to settle on a guiding principle. Commissioners expressed support for a construction ratio of one home for every two jobs, with a cap of 10,000 homes in the first phase of construction. The task force also agreed to not place a cap on job growth, which they said could hinder plans for a corporate campus by Cisco or another major corporation.
None of the development plans can move forward until San Jose revamps a draft environmental report for the Coyote Valley Specific Plan, which includes a 3,600 acre greenbelt buffer north of Morgan Hill. San Jose city planners have not set a new timeline for the environmental study, which elicited 1,300 pages of scathing criticism.
The phasing of the project could prove critical in driving forward the environmental process, according to Dan Hancock, a task force member and representative for homebuilder Shapell Industries.
“A primary criticism of the (environmental impact report) was a lack of phasing,” Hancock said. “Until we decide, they can’t do any more work on the EIR, which is already going to be a year late and millions of dollars over budget. We’ve got a conundrum.”
Consultants hired by San Jose are expected to offer a revised plan for construction phasing at an Oct. 15 meeting. The presentation is expected to include updated cost estimates for constructing roads, parks and other basic services and community features.
Staff Writer Serdar Tumgoren covers county government for The Dispatch. Reach him at 779-4106 or st*******@**********rs.com.
