Tomato Thyme is a popular restaurant in my district that operates out of a typical suburban shopping center—with parking in the front and the buildings in the back. Tenants in this shopping center include Safeway, Rite Aid, Bally’s Fitness, Bank, Dry Cleaner and even a Moose Lodge.
Consumers patronize shopping centers like this, but may never ponder who actually owns the land. In some cases the land is owned by one person, and in other cases there are many owners. In this shopping center, there are six different property owners. They each own their specific building and specific parking spaces. The six owners have had a shared parking agreement in place for years that has allowed customers to park wherever they wanted and visit whichever store they choose without being towed. This parking agreement is expiring in a few months, and renewing it is up to the private property owners.
Tomato Thyme wanted to build a patio in the back of their building with 50 additional seats. So the restaurant hired two lobbyists to assist them in having the City Council change the zoning of the shopping center so that the individual property owners would no longer have a certain number of spaces allotted to their business—thus eliminating the need for an updated parking agreement.
Might seem innocent at first, but when you look deeper, it is really asking the city to use its power of eminent domain to take control of private property. Reminds me of the Tropicana Shopping Center where the city used eminent domain to take land, and in turn was sued. The city lost the court case and paid out millions to the property owners.
I did not want our city to be sued again, as I would rather spend money on public safety and libraries.
The campaign of “Vote Yes on the Patio” was really a smokescreen for a bigger acquisition. The owners of the Tomato Thyme had an option to buy their neighbor, the Moose Lodge. The value of the Moose Lodge, with unlimited parking spaces, (provided the lobbyists could rezone the shopping center) was substantial since the Moose Lodge owned only a handful of parking spaces.
I did not bring up the Moose Lodge on the night of the council vote, because I felt that my memo—supporting a patio—was the goal. Many people whom I have spoken with are happy that the patio was approved, but had no idea about the Moose Lodge and the private property issue the lobbyists were working on.
I gave the Council an example that evening: Lets say you own a house and do not park in your own driveway, since you only have one car. Your next-door neighbor has several cars and asks if he can park in your driveway for free whenever he wants. You say, “no it is my driveway, and I may have future plans for it.” So your neighbor, unhappy with your answer, goes and hires a lobbyist to change the zoning of your house so he can now park in your driveway for free whenever he wants. Sound fair? Well that was the proposal by the restaurant.
When a restaurant wants to add more seats they need to designate where customers will park. So beyond the building of the patio, the city needed to approve where all the new cars would park for the additional 50 patio seats. The onion unraveled as we found Tomato Thyme did not have enough parking for its existing dining room. They own 20 parking spaces which allowed for 50 seats, not their current 119 seats in the dining room.
What a messy situation!
I am supportive of outside dining and like to help small business grow in a way that does not monetarily damage others. Therefore, my memo changed the parking ratio for restaurants in that shopping center to fix Tomato Thyme’s out-of-compliance parking issue. If we did not do this, they would have to reduce the current seating by 69 seats.
The Council also approved the patio with a setback for the neighborhood residents. However, a shared parking agreement for the additional parking spaces, on site or off site, must be in place. Seems fair to have an agreement to use someone’s property.
So things are not always what they appear, even on smaller items on the council agenda.
Should local government respect private property rights, or make exceptions?
Somewhat off the subject but….
As I left the post office at first and St. James, I noticed that the red ugly fake tree has been removed from St. James park.
Does anyone know where it went ?
You left out one important piece of information. How many parking spaces are in the shopping center parking lot?
Generally speaking, shopping center parking spaces should be considered common ground. It is stupid to expect a customer to move their car as they go from one store to the other.
Two other pieces of information that were left out:
* What is the address of the Tomato Thyne in your district?
* What VTA bus lines and light rail serve that shopping center area?
Instead of taking the easy way out and spending 5 to 6 figures on lobbyists to change zoning laws for their benefit, they could have worked with VTA to advertise which bus and train lines serve their restaurant for only the cost of a conference call to VTA staff. Such transit options would be in addition to the driving directions offered on their web site…
http://www.tomato-thyme.com/restaurants.cfm
Both VTA and Tomato Thyne – as well as the area’s quality of life – would have benefited – with extra restaurant customers and more ridership.
Also, given that five City Councilmembers (including Mayor Reed and soon-to-be Board Vice Chair Sam Liccardo) sit on the VTA’s Board of Directors, why wasn’t the latter question brought up at City Council? It is an example on how San Jose’s leadership chooses not to count current transit ridership in (re)development plans.
VTA likes to advertise itself as “Keeping the Valley Green”. Yet, our local leaders appear yellow when they choose to avoid considering current transit use in conversations regarding additional parking. Clearly this is an attitude that must change.
“The owners of the Tomato Thyme had an option to buy their neighbor, the Moose Lodge. The value of the Moose Lodge, with unlimited parking spaces, (provided the lobbyists could rezone the shopping center) was substantial since the Moose Lodge owned only a handful of parking spaces.”
Why wasn’t the issue of Moose Lodge purchase option disclosed before now – Not what anyone would call sunshine open government when certain facts about a Council policy decision was withheld from public
I listened to the Council session and understand your points and wondered what was really going on beyond just a “patio” when owners had hired every lobbyist in San Jose
Too bad the public did not know as some might not have asked Council to vote for “patio” approval if they knew they were being used.
Okay Eungene,
So its dinner or lunch time and I’m going to pack the kids up and catch a bus to go eat.
PPPPPLLLLEEEEAAAAASSEEEEEE!!!!!
Don’t ever open a retail business. You’ll go broke!
PO,
Why don’t you name the lobbyist?
Jerry Strangis…
http://www.sanjoseca.gov/clerk/Lobby/RegisteredLobbyist.pdf
Why?
Comment deleted
Pierluigi,
With all due respect, your column is hard to comprehend. I am confused how many dining seats (indoor and outdoor) TT has, and how many parking spots it is required to have.
Nevertheless, if the current 6 property owners have a parking space agreement, unless its terms are illegal or contrary to city or state laws, then that agreement should continue until it expires and then the 6 owners can renegotiate terms. The City of SJ should stay out of it, unless one or more owner fails to meet it parking space requirements per City ordinance. If any property owner needs to gain title or use of more parking spaces, then it could amend the agreement to lease them from another willing owner. After all, if TT expects to increase revenues from new dining patrons, then it should be able to lease additional parking slots.
In retrospect, you should have raised the issue of the Moose lodge at the council meeting, if it would have clarified the issue. The fair question to raise for any new project is: does the business expansion provide for enough additional parking spaces? If not, then back to drawing board.
Pierluigi,
You are asking the wrong question. You should be asking why did Tomato Thyme had to hire two lobbyists to deal with the city. My guess is without lobbyists this issue would have died a quick death in the planning department. Is the city really this hostile to businesses that they must also take on the burden of hiring two well connected hired guns to be heard?
A very interesting post! And oddly I understand the way in which you believe that you cut the best deal for all involved. The comparison to the Tropicana matter was an obvious red herring, but the principles involved as you outlined them are pretty straight forward and you defined the line between public and private interests properly, in the end. But you did leave out some key information. Stuff like the what, where, and who…
On the face of it the “what” of it sounds very odd, especially if it was presented by hired guns, lobbyists, guys in ties telling the Council all about the troubles of some “small business”… A legal end run that only compounds the negative impact of the whole cobbled together “development”. So the what of it stank already, but the problem may be in the presentation, many restaurants fail because of poor presentation… I would have supported the patio and it is more than unfortunate that our process is so cumbersome.
And then there is the “where”… I guess there is a section of Willow Glen that is hard up against the City of Campbell, but if you ask me that is the Willow Glen of the Real Estate Board, the one that is rapidly consuming Cambrian Park and stretching out toward Robertsville… A quick Google reveals the coincidence of these particular businesses at the SE corner of Hamilton and Meridian, a shopping center that I am very familiar with. They even have a great picture, you can count everything…
By modern standards it is already overdeveloped, its traffic interface with Hamilton is uncontrolled and inherently dangerous, further the parking lot is essentially cut off from Meridian by the gas station located on the corner and is poorly designed and divided. The business mix does not lend itself to time shifting or sharing gains in parking due to the almost 24-7 use of the parking lot by the fitness center, Rite-Aid and Safeway… There really are steps the City could take to alleviate the issues, but juggling zoning rules to rob Peter in order to reward Paul is not how it is done.
Then there is the “who”…
Now I wasn’t there for the party but this isn’t the first time I have seen your name in print next to the name of this restaurant… Is it? You celebrated your victory in the run-off there 3/6/2007. You could Google it…
And Google also records that these people have been trying to get this expansion approved by the City for a very long time, in fact the Council Agenda for 4/17/2007 confirms both your attendance and that TT was on the calendar all spring on the matter…
Glad you finally cut a deal, one could ask what took so long but then there are appearances to consider…
Not to mention transparency…
R G Johnson
San Jose
#1
No idea what happened to that artificial tree in St. James Park. Call 535.4903
#2
There are a few hundred spaces that are all privately owned. Agree with you on customer convenience but up to private property owners not government.
#4
Moose Lodge property was not on the council agenda that night.
#6
It is a weekly challenge to write my blog clearly and concisely. Originally I was at 1400 words which is too long so I condensed it to 700. Agree with you it is up to the private property owners to amend agreement. Government should not force them.
#7
Did not feel the need to name the lobbyists in my post however you are correct in pointing out where to find that information.
#9
A Lobbyist is someone who is hired and paid money to influence decision on behalf of clients. In this case to try and get something that was not fair to the other property owners and then having the city get sued. As the Mayor has said we need to make San Jose the best place to open and expand a business however not by taking other peoples property.
#10
Thanks for the comments.
Planning Dept recommended denial from the start however the council in many cases is the final vote. Planning Dept for example has not supported converting industrial land to housing however council has voted to convert it time and time again.
Thank you for your comments as well, and the forum…
The correct balance between the roar of the boomtown and the quiet tranquility of our preferred residential areas has been and will always be difficult, if not impossible, to achieve. This is so because the differences are not actually between competing interest groups, in that case one could chose to ally oneself with the leafy tree-lined street advocates and always oppose the boomtowners, but in modern Silicon Valley but that is truly not an option, to oppose the boomtowners all the time is to risk the jobs and well being of the leafies as well, for today we are all boomtowners but we prefer to live on the quiet, safe and peaceful tree lined streets…
So you see it is another one of those modern conundrums, we have met the enemy and they are we…
California has always been America’s laboratory, the place were ideas could be tested and theorems played out, a beautiful blank slate to be filled with the vision of that suburban future. At 52 I recall that to be the either the all electric Eichler or its clean burning abundant natural gas cousin… In either case the model was clear, rectilinear commercial main streets would box in the various cluster developments with a network of limited access roads, including the Federal Interstates, superimposed and linking it all together…
Man! What difference a few decades makes… All of these development plans rested on one single assumption, that energy would always be cheap and readily abundant, that the infrastructure would keep expanding to accommodate the automobile to the exclusion of all else. And frankly, as a young man watching the world literally explode with knowledge, seeing how mobility had easily translated into incredible gains in the standard of living in America, I could see little that would ever change that.
Welcome to 21st Century… Leave your assumptions at the door and be prepared to be flexible…
The cookie cutter approach of most Planning Depts, imbued upon them by almost identical educations and experience and demanded by the aforementioned “model”, has proven itself to be an exercise in soulless corporate domination by repetition and resulted in a California in which one could wake up an amnesiac in any city and instantly feel at home… And lost at the same time… But at least one could easily find a Starbucks, Jamba Juice and Quiznos, usually right next door to each other…
As builder I can’t help but notice that most of these developments are cheaply constructed and huge energy drains…
But the beat goes on… Most of my neighbors, we live downtown, and my own family are very pleased at the development of the old rail yard at Coleman-Taylor, providing as it does access to many of the most popular stores without fighting the freeway to get there… Amnesiacs will feel right at home… This development and the adjoining patches along Stockton Ave and southward along the old rail corridor make up one of the largest conversions of industrial to multi-residential zoned land in the City. And that is to be expected, as industry was always located by the railroad.
When you combine this fact with the need to reverse the suburban exodus and concentrate populations, and thus development, more densely around public transportation, what you get is the loss of that industrial land. It will be one way or the other or we must find a way to blend it together, to balance the need for industry and services, and the jobs that go with them, with our desire for peaceful tree lined streets.
There are hundreds of businesses that do the dirty work required by our lifestyles, even the greenest of these lifestyles has an element of the ugly… If you want fry grease turned into bio-fuel someone has to collect and process it, it has to be transported and distributed… If we want a vibrant green economy that produces products and services they need a place to do that, and it can be noisy and dirty.
But not in my neighborhood! I like my leafy tree lined street… But seriously, in the last twenty-five years we have moved our noisy and occasionally dirty construction firm five times, in each location we have either been backed up to railway line or a creek, in our present location we have both. But the fact remains that if we wanted to actually buy a home for the company, with a future not stamped out for condo or commercial retail development in the General Plan, it would be difficult to do, and we tried, anywhere in the core area of the City. You can rent or even buy, but getting a permit to do anything substantial is, as the TT patio affair amply demonstrates, difficult…
RGJ