The City of Gilroy is re-defining the very blueprints of its future and community leaders are taking unprecedented steps to ensure residents and business owners play a role in the process.
A town hall-style website and online community forum – one piece of the puzzle in the effort to revamp Gilroy’s vision and guiding principles through the creation of a new 20-year General Plan, or “constitution for future development” – powered up Nov. 7.
Gilroy last adopted a General Plan in 2002, and per state law, cities and counties must complete the task every 10 years. The process is expected to take more than two years to finish and is headed by a group known as the General Plan Advisory Committee or GPAC, which consists of a mixture of 25 residents, active community members, developers and City officials.
The website, created by a group of planners for Nebraska-based technology start-up MindMixer, marks the first time City officials have asked for online participation in the General Plan process. Residents and business owners have a chance to weigh in on topics from answering questions about what should change in Gilroy, to detailing what the strengths are and what each participant’s vision for Gilroy is, in addition to positing new ideas and commenting on the ideas of others. The website will be moderated by the Sacramento consulting firm hired by the City in August to guide the General Plan update, Mintier Harnish.
“The technology wasn’t there 11 years ago when the last one was being done here,” said Gilroy Senior Planner and General Plan Project Manager Stan Ketchum. “I think in the last few years the state-of-the-art technologies, relatively speaking, have become affordable and the cost isn’t outrageous anymore.”
As of Wednesday, one new idea had been posted to the forum.
A commenter with the user name of “the greek guy v,” who said his residence backs up to Las Animas Veterans Park, complained of kids smoking marijuana and a “group of people looking questionable at the tables.”
There used to be young children playing soccer near his end of the park, the commenter said, but with the people in the park doing drugs, “nobody comes around much any more.”
His idea? Maybe if there were assigned park rangers or a similar community enforcement presence, it could discourage illegal activity.
“People just don’t want their kids around this kind of stuff or questionable groups of people,” said the commenter. “It’s a beautiful park. Bring people back.”
From here on out, observations and suggestions such as the one from “the greek guy V” will be passed on to City staff and the 25-member GPAC.
By 2015, the City expects to have updated its General Plan; incorporating a possible future California High Speed Rail station in Gilroy; the Santa Clara Valley Habitat Plan; the Climate Action Plan; and will have adapted to any regional plans and new state laws.
The community forum, coupled with upcoming public meetings, will serve other purposes such as allowing residents and business owners to contribute their vision for what Gilroy should look like in 20 or 30 years.
“This is not an edict from City Hall,” Ketchum said. “We’re asking the community to please step forward. Tell us what you want your community to be; be an active part of that.”
By the first of five community meetings scheduled for 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. Nov. 19 in the community room of the Gilroy Library, the GPAC committee and City staff will be presented with all of the comments downloaded from the town hall forum, which will be summarized and become part of the ongoing conversation, Ketchum assured.
“The General Plan represents, for a city or a county, a long range plan for growth and development – a guidebook, a handbook or an operating manual if you will,” explained Jim Harnish, principal of Mintier Harnish, at a recent GPAC meeting. “It embodies a city’s statement about where it’s headed.”
Mintier Harnish, as well as Monterey-based EMC Planning Group, are under a $1.75 million contract with the City to guide the General Plan update and work together to help further palpate Gilroy’s long-term vision for the community.
The General Plan must express the community’s development goals and embody public policy that relates to the distribution of public and private future land uses, according to Harnish.
Whether it’s by physically attending community workshops or contributing to the town hall forum, Ketchum said participation is critical to the General Plan process.
“We’re trying to make this process establishing Gilroy’s future all for the community and we desperately want the community’s participation and engagement to help hold that,” Ketchum said.
Local developer and downtown advocate Gary Walton said he’s pleased to hear the City is reaching out and broadening the input base.
“I really hope it’s more than just kind of window dressing and that they really reach out to the community and the people that have opinions because, basically, that’s the purpose of the vision,” Walton said. “It’s the community’s vision and not necessarily staff’s vision of what they want Gilroy to be in 20, 30 or 40 years. I’m a firm believer that the wisdom of the crowd can be pretty amazing.”
“The broader the input the better decisions are made..”
Tammy Brownlow, a GPAC member and president of the Gilroy Economic Development Center – a nonprofit that works alongside the Chamber of Commerce to attract new business and bring economic health to Gilroy – said the technology allows and encourages more vocal opinions from more a wider variety of voices.
“Being able to use a website and all these tools of technology to do that, really opens the door wide for the average citizen to be able to follow the process of the General Plan and be able to voice comments on various aspects of it,” Brownlow said. “I think we’ll see more and more of this as the process unfolds.”
The forum translates all pages from English into a plethora of other languages from Afrikaans to Yiddish and Ketchum said that all General Plan documents will be translated into Spanish.
“We’ll be having translation services available, particularly at the community workshops like on Nov. 19, so we’re working hard to outreach to the Hispanic community,” he said. “Obviously it’s a large, important part of Gilroy.”
Since the last General Plan was adopted in 2002, Gilroy’s population has grown by 20 percent to just under 51,000. City staff say the effects of the Great Recession are finally starting to recede locally, which highlights the importance of community involvement in the process of defining what Gilroy will look like two to three decades into the future.
“As the economy is beginning to improve, the new General Plan will help position Gilroy for a stronger economic recovery,” said City Public Information Technician Jacqui Carrasco. “The two-and-a-half year planning process will also enable the City to use contemporary planning strategies to make Gilroy more resilient in the face of a changing environment. (It) creates an opportunity for a new vision and strategy that reflect the changes of the last decade and captures the community’s aspirations for the future.”
Ketchum said the GPAC and City staff are also hoping to engage the Gilroy Unified School District and receive input from Gilroy’s youth.
The City encourages all interested residents and business owners to help prepare a new plan for Gilroy’s future by attending the Nov. 19 community workshop and participating in the online town hall forum here.
-Visit http://townhall.gilroy2040.com and sign up for free
-Participants can submit ideas, answer questions and comment on the ideas of other website users
-Attend the Tuesday, Nov. 19 community workshop between 6:30 – 8:30 p.m. in the Gilroy Library Community Room
