As tempting as it is to write this week on the navel gazing of the San Jose Police Department and its study of itself suggesting some important and disturbing targeting of minorities, I will save that until another day. My topic today is the one that refuses to go away, the Tombstone (“the town too tough to die”) of our time. It is the scam of the century, the development too lucrative to die: Coyote Valley. Like Freddy Krueger, no matter how many times it is declared dead in innumerable study sessions and elections or in the pronouncements of mayors and budget directors and editorial writers, the new city of sprawl and delusion keeps coming back. No one can drive a stake in its heart, protected as it is by the woolly thinking of certain council members, the Hessians of the lobbying cult, and an impenetrable Kevlar vest of greenbacks and cynicism.
As the environmental work gets completed and the Coyote Task Force Co-chairs Forrest Williams and Nancy Pyle wax eloquent about the benefits of this castle of sand, others of us wonder just who benefits from this activity. It is a fair and timely question about this relic of the Gonzales era.
At one time, the Coyote Valley industrial lands were to be the antidote against the whacky plans that have bedeviled and confused city councils for decades. It was to end all that and become a reservoir of “campus industrial” sites for the future. In the eighties, Apple and Tandem did not make the big step to locate there and inertia followed. Then, a decade later, Cisco became a combination of reality and stalking horse. Like Lt. Milo Minderbinder’s syndicate in Catch 22, every big developer in the valley has a share.
And from the hills of Los Altos and the golf courses of the Monterey Peninsula, the gnomes of Pebble Beach talk a good game of community benefits, but care little about how the people of San Jose keep their pools open and their streets paved. The only ones left in the lurch are the neighborhoods who will be paying for this boondoggle for many generations. If Evergreen is Afghanistan, Coyote Valley is Iraq—a glistening financial quagmire. The next question is: how can Forrest Williams and Nancy Pyle believe that this plan benefits our citizens or those that live in Districts 2 and 10? They need a reality check on their thought process; of such faulty thinking, great disasters are made.
It is imperative to stop this development in its tracks before our city is mired in a project from which there will be no retreat. It’s time to stop this insanity and put an end to the blathering of the confused and the obfuscation of the greedy.
All of this over-reacting about global warming (10,000 years ago, global warming melted the ice-age glaciers that covered half of north america without any help from SUVs) yet the global warming scare-mongers don’t complain about the additional sprawl of the proposed Coyote Valley development. We should leave Coyote Valley alone and increase densities along the existing light rail system, thus justifying the investment.
No new “outer reaches” development until adequate infill development is done.
And no new development without a public vote.
Give it up finally, please. This valley should be left prestine. Finally, someone say “NO” to studies, to talking to thinking about Coyote Valley. This has been pushed for thirty years or more. Give us a break council people and just don’t talk to these lobbyists who stroke you to make you more important than you are. Feels good to you but it’s a joke. Just take a look at past coucil people and see who’s stroking them, no one, they’re out and it will happen to you. So don’t buy the BS.
As much as I love the hills around Coyote Valley, many of the homes/yards would send any Willow Glen resident into a conniption fit. It’s not all that “pristine”…unless Bakersfield is, too.
I agree that we are allowing developers to dictate public policy in Coyote Valley. This cannot be allowed to continue. The initial justification of developing in Coyote Valley is to create industrial land, so called driving industries. However, the focus very quickly turns to housing development and sprawl. Coyote Valley must remain pristine and clear unless it is ABSOLUTELY necessary to develop because we have maximized our infill development and there is no more room to build out. Even then, we must, must, must start with industrial land and a quality transportation infrastructure before we start dotting the countryside with more resource sapping housing!
Let’s just focus the growth in downtown and leave rest of San Jose alone. This is not LA.. There are plenty of growth opportunities in the downtown area by way of highrise offices and housing.
I hate to be bitter, but here it is.
Those who are against expansive suburban development are probably already Silicon Valley homeowners. And now you have the luxury of approaching this subject holistically instead of pragmatically.
Tom you made a direct hit with this one. I drove through that valley this morning North from Morgan Hill on Hale, Santa Teresa, and Bailey. It was beautiful and should stay that way. Sobrato has signs all over and that’s really too bad. I can’t imagine that Williams and Pyle live there or anywhere near it.
Here’s a farfetched idea! The City of SJ should swap the Coyote Valley (or a large portion of it) to the County in exchange for the Fairgrounds site. Adding to Gary of LG, the City could then focus development (currently slated for the CV) from the current fairgrounds site, north along the Monterey corridor, to downtown San Jose. As for Santa Clara County’s new land in the CV, a new Fairground could be built in a more appropriate bucolic setting. The County could also add a park and 20,000-seat amphitheater built into the western hills of the CV. The amphitheater would not only provide a revenue source for the cash strapped County, it would also provide the Bay Area with an alternative to the wind-swept, “Candlestick” like Shoreline (BRR!!).
Anthony: why not then develop the fairgrounds and begin working to connect downtown to that area, essentially growing the city’s core? I don’t think there’d be nearly as many objections to “renewing” Monterey Road.
Seems if there is money to be made there is no stopping the development. I would love to see more density housing, but people want a place to park their SUVs that are causing global warming. Can’t fight City Hall! Or wait….
Remember that a group of citizens did fight City Hall a few years ago. They collected over 50,000 signatures to put the then Coyote Valley plan on the ballot. Of course, that champion of democracy, Ron Gonzales forced the city attorney to kill the initiative on a technicality, but common sense prevailed in spite of Gonzo and Coyote Valley remained unspoiled.
Thanks to Tom for keeping this issue alive on SJI. And thanks to everyone who continues to fight to keep Coyote Valley from
destruction.
For RKenny
It is not a case of “who” has a house, but a case of will the rest of the city, all of us, subsidize a City the size of Milpitas in the Coyote Valley. Once, in my administration, it was a reserve of Industrial land for the Apples or future Ciscos. Now THIS plan has reduced the Indus. to small pockets, and the Residential is predominant: a travesty of the prior plan. Money is the only answer; our planners blinded by pretty pictures; lobbyists the slime that holds it together. TMcE
Can it be truly said that all other options for development apart from Coyote Valley have been exhausted? If the answer is “no”, then the answer to developers should be “no” as well.
And the answer should be “no” until a full public vote says “yes”.
Tom, you are so right. It is difficult to withstand the pressure by developers when most people in the Taj Gonzales, including the elected officials, seem to be on board before it even gets to the public for comment. The whole process is backwards. I, for one, will resist to the best of my ability. However, it will take unity from all corners to resist this massive push to develop.
I’m definitely not in support of building more sardine-packed stucco disasters in San Jose, but this isn’t like drilling for oil in an Arctic Alaskan wildlife preserve, guys. There’s already a freeway (101), a highway (82), what might as well be a highway (Santa Teresa/Hale), railroad tracks (Caltrain), tacky man-made fishing ponds (Parkway), industrial electric facilities, a landfill just up the hill (Kirby Canyon)…and then you hit Morgan Hill, which already looks like your worst nightmare. You’ll still be able to see the hills (the real attraction) and you can still have your drives through the country just west on McKean/Uvas Road. I already prefer that anyway.
I encourage people to fight the development, but it’s far from being the end of the world if you lose.
I also agree that we should keep residential out of Coyote Valley, at least until we have industry in the area. I also agree that we should move the fairgrounds along with the airports, both SJ and R.H., down there. As stated, this could be payed for by the sale of the fairground and airport land. Once the airport is moved, we also could place a fee on any developer who want to build taller projects, than presently allowed by FAA, in the old flight path. Just think of what the downtown coud become if it were not for the airport. We could have an ampatheater in Guadalupe Park and a ball park-stadium in the airport site. Just a day dream I guess!
Behold the final result of Prop. 13: the utter and complete fiscalization of land-use.
We reap what we sow.
RKenny,
For the record, as a non-homeowner I do not want to see the development of Coyote Valley. One of those downtown “highrises” will do just fine. I would like my children to experience REAL open space in San Jose.
Here! Here! The Coyote Valley develpment topc is as old as the hills. The reality is that it is now, as always, a bad idea. The reasons are many. I offer two here that are economic.
1) There is no way for San Jose to pay for city services in Coyote Valley without large scale jobs growth. We can’t pay for our roads, parks, community centers, police or fire protection and more now. Whitout a major boost in business tax revenue, there is no way we can pay for these services in Coyote Valley.
2) We need productive agricultural land close to urban areas. At tehe rate we are paving over our farms and ranches, we will soon be more dependant on foreign food than we are on foreogn oil. This cannot be allowed to happen.
Has anyone driven over the hill from San Jose toward Morgan Hill lately on Santa Teresa. They have already started construction in Coyote Valley. Once over the hill, the road has been reduced to a single lane (used to be two lanes). On the right side of the road, significant earth movement and other structural work (drainage?) appears to have already started. This is not a small project. There are a number of large earthmoving machines out there and lots of earth has already been pushed. Whoever does not believe Coyote development is a done deal should take a ride down Santa Teresa.
18 – It may not be the end of the world, but you will be able to see it from here if we do lose.
Seems like major consensus that there not be another house in Coyote Valley, and for good reasons, not just sentimentality, though the idea of keeping ag in CV is just sentimental. Not viable. Talk to any farmer. Major imaginative industrial would be served by the freeway and train, though I recall there are some serious problems with the drainage down there. But what’s the PLAN to get industry to go for CV? The idea for large scale entertainment there sounds inter-
esting too, and the idea of moving the air-
port to CV is wonderful! Would solve a lot of
problems. Downtown is where the residential should be, but how do you get by the neigh-
borhood associations that like things just as they are? LOTS of infill opportunities, but not for these urban suburbanites, or suburban urbanites. George Green
I think I’d rather put up with a stubby skyline and a more human-scaled downtown than wreck CV with a jetport. Plus the people of MH and Gilroy would have none of it. The more correct plan from the past that would have relocated the airport further north with an approach directly over US 101 got shot down by the likes of Milpitas in far less uppity times than today. A CV jetport would never fly . . .
Many of the bloggers who are pushing for infill development here seem to be the same people whining in other posts about supersized McHomes in Willow Glen and elsewhere.
Development of homes in a home-starved environment like ours will only cease when we collectively stop having so many kids.
That said, if residential develoment in Coyote Valley is to occur, it must be only after job triggers have been met. With our city in such a fiscal mess and our infrastructure in such disrepair, we clearly need tax generators more than we need homes right now.
“…the global warming scare-mongers don’t complain about the additional sprawl of the proposed Coyote Valley development. We should leave Coyote Valley alone…”
Both Committee for Green Foothills (which I represent) and the local Sierra Club oppose Coyote Valley development at this time. And both organizations take global warming very seriously.
Coyote Valley development is completely unneccessary now, but at buildout it will force thousands of people to live in distant areas and drive in to work. It’s a bad idea with bad consequences for the planet.
Residential development in the Coyote Valley is a foregone conclusion. Frankly, I’m amazed that it has held out as long as it has.
It was easy to keep housing out of the CV when the only way to access it from San Jose was the Monterey Highway. But, when the South Valley (now Sig Sanchez) Freeway was built, the long-term future of the Coyote Valley was foretold.
So long as people are commuting from San Benito County, there will be financial pressure to develop the CV, and all that will be required is for one mayor, or one city council, to give in, and then the dam will burst.
I remember (as a young lad) my folks being told housing would not eventually choke the northeast side, and that the ranches and orchards of Berryessa would not be affected or lost because of additional traffic brought in by the new Interstate 680 freeway. But then, part of the Battaglia Ranch was sold, and the floodgates opened. The complete infill of Berryessa took less than 20 years.
The only guaranteed way to preserve the Coyote Valley is to take the lands into private hands, via some sort of conservancy – which is going to require insane amounts of jack.
Perhaps someone has Bill Gates’ or Paul Allen’s phone number…