In a move that’s reminiscent of when the soon-to-be-opened
Metcalf power plant was forced upon the South Bay, and the current
BART-extension-at-any-price attitude, San Jose Mayor Ron Gonzales
and San Jose City Councilman Forrest Williams have concocted a plan
to remove some of the
”
triggers
”
that must occur before Coyote Valley development can
proceed.
In a move that’s reminiscent of when the soon-to-be-opened Metcalf power plant was forced upon the South Bay, and the current BART-extension-at-any-price attitude, San Jose Mayor Ron Gonzales and San Jose City Councilman Forrest Williams have concocted a plan to remove some of the “triggers” that must occur before Coyote Valley development can proceed.
For more than a decade, the City of San Jose has promised that five things must occur before Coyote Valley can be developed:
• 5,000 new jobs in Coyote Valley
• Stable municipal financial outlook
• Five-year economic forecast projecting balanced budgets or surplus each year
• Financial stability in the fiscal relationship with the State of California
• Returning police, fire and library services to 1993 levels
These common sense promises, made to the residents of the greater South Bay region, were put in place to ensure that one of the last remaining rural areas under the city of San Jose’s control would not be developed until it made sound economic and good planning sense. These triggers assured all that the city would not expand its infrastructure and service commitments by developing a new area before current residents’ service levels were restored.
How can the city justify taking on 80,000 new residents, building miles of new water, lines, sewer pipes, roads and drainage ditches, protect them with police, paramedic and fire services and provide quality of life measures like libraries and parks when it’s not adequately meeting the needs of current residents? Obviously, it cannot, and it should not.
But there is economic pressure to build homes, and time pressure on Gonzales to build a legacy. BART and major-league baseball are looking iffier by the minute. What’s a termed-out mayor to do? Develop Coyote Valley, apparently, and make friends to support his next campaign.
While there’s pressure to build homes, there is absolutely no pressure to build industrial or office space. Although the Bay Area housing market is inexplicably strong, the Bay Area commercial real estate market is in a tailspin. Companies are routinely moving to better office space for less money to take advantage of the high vacancy rates.
At the same time, thanks to unfunded federal mandates and to the chronic state budget crisis, local governments are facing fiscal crises. San Jose has cut its budget drastically for the last three years, is struggling to close a $58 million deficit and even Gonzales admits that at least two more years of cuts are ahead.
So, with his second term ending in 2006, we shouldn’t be surprised that Gonzales is moving to drop the two most difficult triggers: a balanced or surplus budget outlook, and the number of new jobs in Coyote Valley.
It’s not surprising, but it’s still outrageous. And let’s hope that environmentalists, who were counting on those triggers to keep Coyote Valley development a back-burner issue, are equally alarmed.
This move raises the alert level on Coyote Valley. Complacency is no longer an option. If Gonzales and Williams are successful in this ill-advised plan, a new city will spring up unnecessarily, likely a piecemeal development driven by home developers guided by their bottom lines.
More pollution, more traffic and more conversion of buffer land between South County and San Jose into sprawl is completely unnecessary now.
Our local City Councils, the San Martin Neighborhood Alliance, school districts and, of course, Santa Clara County Supervisor Don Gage should weigh in and let Gonzales know that empire building isn’t a good reason to throw out the development triggers that he and his predecessors pledged would be strictly interpreted and adhered to.
It’s a quality of life issue for everyone in the South Valley.
