Next week the City Council will dole out the last of its housing
allocations until 2013.
Gilroy – Next week the City Council will dole out the last of its housing allocations until 2013. A high-ranking elected official wants recently annexed farmland developed one way or another after he “went to bat for the city,” but two city councilmen say they’ve felt undue pressure from one developer who wants to build on the land. Others say lobbying is just part of politics.
To build their 236-residential-unit project, known as “Oak Creek,” developers Michael McDermott and Vince Giacalone, owner of Giacalone Electrical Services, need to beat out eight other developers for all 191 market-rate housing units, known as “residential development ordinances,” that city leaders will reward Monday night.
The two hope councilmen will let them, like previous developers, exceed the 191 RDO cap since they’ve done extensive planning and included affordable housing in the project at the corner of Luchessa Avenue and Monterey Road. The two have also offered to donate hundreds of thousands of dollars to the school district and downtown redevelopment.
But a bigger enticement for city officials may be that development of the 27-acre site will trigger requirements to expand Luchessa Avenue from two to four lanes, making for easier access to U.S. 101 for future residential neighborhoods in west Gilroy. This played a big role in July when the Planning Commission ranked Oak Creek number one out of the nine competing residential projects.
Council candidate Tim Day voted for the project as a member of the Planning Commission and has since received a $100 contribution from Giacalone, though Day said the voting’s over and his vote had been cast before he even knew Giacalone was on the project with “merits that speak for themselves.”
Despite the perceived merits, Councilmen Russ Valiquette and Dion Bracco said they don’t like Oak Creek representative Lee Weeder’s sense of entitlement.
“It was sort of like, [Weeder] was telling me, ‘Hey, look, we deserve this. We were one on the list, and you guys can’t say no to us in all fairness.’ Well, I’m sorry, yes I can,” Valiquette said of the project’s “hired gun.”
Weeder could not be reached for comment.
Bracco said he has refused to meet with the Oak Creek group anymore because of similar complaints.
“I have no problem meeting with developers on these issues, but I don’t like being pressured,” said Bracco, who added that he’d like to develop empty pockets of town before starting new projects at the edge of the city. “I got no problem with the pressure, but they’re out of line,” Bracco added. “They think those RDOs belong to them.”
Candidates Perry Woodward, Bob Dillon, and incumbent Roland Velasco all said they hadn’t been pressured over the issue.
Mayoral candidate Craig Gartman, who works for Giacalone’s brother designing residential and commercial gas utilities, said City Attorney Linda Callon assured him there’d be no conflict of interest when he votes on the RDOs.
Oak Creek wouldn’t even be an issue if the Local Agency Formation Commission, a regional agency with veto power over annexation requests, hadn’t let Gilroy bring the farmland within city borders in April.
Mayor Al Pinheiro, among others, encouraged Santa Clara County Supervisor and LAFCO Chair Don Gage to let the city have the land since it’s wedged between car dealerships and hotels along Monterey Road, residential neighborhoods north of Luchessa Avenue, and an 81-acre sports park to the south.
“It doesn’t make any sense to have an island between our sports park and city,” said Pinheiro, adding that “everybody thinks their project’s the best,” and while Oak Creek “has a great shot,” he said, “when it comes to the council, all bets are off.”
This irks Gage. He said he pushed the measure through LAFCO, but now he’s in a hard spot because the land might not be developed until after 2013. LAFCO requires development within five years of annexation; otherwise, Gage said, there’s no point.
“I went to bat for the city. If they don’t follow up, then fine, but if they come back for more, they’re not going to be able to get it, and that’s just advice. That’s not a threat.” Gage said. “What’s the credibility for the next [annexation]? What do I tell LAFCO people when I’m trying to pitch to them that this is the right thing to do for, say, Westfield? All they have to do is look at me and ask, ‘What about he last project?’ I can’t justify that,” Gage said.
All this commotion over his land has frustrated farmer Richard Barberi. He has an agreement with McDermott and Giacalone to sell them his land once they get the RDOs, but he said he can’t afford to keep paying $26,000 a year in taxes on land that’s only producing $7,500.
“I’m caught in the middle ground,” Barberi said. “The school district’s in favor of this project. Give me a friggin’ break. This is the number one project the city approved. I hate like hell how this has become a political issue.”
Gage agreed and said “if [councilmen] can’t handle the pressure, they should get out of there.”
“I get pressure from everybody,” he said. ” ‘We need 660 acres for this. We need 100 acres for that.’ Should LAFCO say, ‘I don’t like the pressure?’ No, that’s my job.”
And Giacalone said it’s his job to make sure Oak Creek’s merits show, and lobbying is the way to go, but he and McDermott said they’ve never thrown Gage’s name around to bolster their project. In fact, Gage said he doesn’t care who develops the land, just as long as it’s developed after annexation since that was the point of bringing it into the city at a time when “we’re running out of farmland.”
Giacalone said if he and McDermott receive the RDOs, then they’ll opt to pay a fee to offset the regional absence of farmland, which is part of the city’s acre-for-acre policy when it comes to paving over agricultural land.
“We’ve lobbied very hard putting our project’s merits before council members,” said Giacalone, who added that Oak Creek “brings closure to the sports park” and is ranked first, not last, “so why would we pressure councilmen?”
The Oak Creek project will house more than 800 new residents in 236 units. Plans call for a strip of four storefronts at the corner of Luchessa Avenue and Monterey Road, with 24 above-ground apartments or condominiums.
At the beginning of the year, City Administrator Jay Baksa predicted Gilroy would exceed its growth cap of 3,450 units by more than 1,000 at the end of the 10-year period that began in 2003.
Once the market-rate units are snapped up, only permits for low-income and senior housing will remain, and officials said eco-friendly designs will play a large role in future RDO give-aways.
Lobbying is sure to follow, but Gartman had one thing to say: “If you can’t stand the heat, you better get out of the kitchen.”
