If you’re going to do it, do it right.
That’s the theory behind
”
Getting It Right: Preventing Sprawl in Coyote Valley,
”
a report on development in Coyote Valley released this month by
the Greenbelt Alliance.
If you’re going to do it, do it right.
That’s the theory behind “Getting It Right: Preventing Sprawl in Coyote Valley,” a report on development in Coyote Valley released this month by the Greenbelt Alliance.
Officials at the San Francisco-based environmental and land-use organization don’t necessarily favor large-scale growth in the bucolic 6,800-acre valley between south San Jose and Morgan Hill.
But if Coyote is going to be developed into a new community within the sprawling confines of the state’s third largest city – a community San Jose officials have projected for 50,000 new jobs, 25,000 housing units and as many as 80,000 residents – alliance members said it might as well happen the right way by employing the principles of “smart growth.”
With the report, the group seeks to avoid the style of development so common throughout parts of the Silicon Valley: sprawling, low-story office buildings that are surrounded by seas of parking and often several miles via high-speed expressways from isolated residential subdivisions.
Instead, under the Greenbelt vision the valley’s newest community would incorporate the features of livable and popular areas such as San Francisco, downtown Mountain View or Palo Alto, Oakland’s Rockridge area and downtown San Jose.
Based on the tenets of “New Urbanism,” it would blend jobs, commercial services, schools and higher-density, mixed-income housing styles – together with transit service and a grid-based traffic system – to create a self-sustaining community that would encourage use of the car as little as possible.
The alliance and its consultants argue that Silicon Valley’s economic slowdown has given public officials and developers the opportunity to pause and think differently – and better – over plans for Coyote Valley that they say are now obsolete in the wake of the high-tech bust.
“There was a vision related to a phenomenon of the economy that is in a large measure, over,” said Daniel Solomon, an architect who helped craft the document. “There’s an opportunity to rethink what that is and not build the 1970-75 vision of a certain type of industrial employment.
“It’s not the vitality of what’s going on now.”
Large-scale Coyote Valley development plans – which currently include provisions for campus industrial development in the north part of the valley, housing in the middle and a “greenbelt” to to the south – have been a source of controversy in the region. Outlying cities as far south as Salinas have complained the growth would impact them as well, especially in terms of housing.
Morgan Hill Mayor Dennis Kennedy said that he thinks that 80,000 new residents in the Coyote Valley is too many – noting it’s more than the populations of his city and Gilroy combined – and would prefer a community on the scale of existing area cities.
“I thought it was very well-done study and report, and I would hope the city of San Jose incorporates as many of those concepts as possible,” he said. “I also hope the city of San Jose reduces the amount of development.”
He called the vision report a model for smart growth that all communities can learn from and whose transit, greenbelt and housing concepts portend positive impacts for Morgan Hill.
“I think what they’ve done is try to make it as much of a self-sustaining community as possible, so you don’t create a lot of jobs but force workers to look elsewhere for housing,” he said. “You create the jobs and housing at the same time. That would minimize the impact to the south especially.”
The document focuses specific recommendations in the following areas:
– Building community: The plan would dissolve the artificial division between the north valley – which is currently the projected campus-industrial job center with the development of the Coyote Valley Research Park – and the mid-valley area that is an urban reserve projected for housing.
A town center on Bailey Avenue between Monterey Highway and Santa Teresa Boulevards would be the primary commercial area, creating an old-fashioned downtown with high-rise buildings with ground-floor retail and offices and residences on upper floors.
Distinct neighborhoods would feature transit- and pedestrian-oriented centers with small-scale retail, service, office uses and community facilities to help form the identity of each area and prevent driving.
The blended average density would be 28 units per acre, architects said – double to triple that of San Jose’s current general plan projections.
– Environment and Agriculture: The vision includes a network of 860 acres of regional, community and neighborhood parkland, including a 500-acre linear “greenway” along a restored Fisher Creek similar to a larger “Panhandle” section of San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park. Other “view corridors” would take advantage of hillsides and other natural features.
The 3,300-acre south Coyote Valley area would be permanently protected as a greenbelt buffer between San Jose and Morgan Hill. The report suggests a moratorium on ranchette-style housing development in that area until better protections can be hammered out.
The vision would add another roughly 600 acres of protected aglands as well. About 2,380 acres of the agland surrounding the development would become a “food belt” for education, tourism and sense of place.
– Social Equity: At least 20 percent of all housing units would be designated as affordable housing for low-income residents, but would be distributed throughout the valley to promote inclusiveness.
Architects also hope for a robust transit system featuring a Caltrain station near the town center, a bus rapid transit line along Santa Teresa Boulevard and a local bus loop linking neighborhood centers.
To accomplish the blend of housing and jobs, alliance officials admit the vision would likely require the city and major developers in North Coyote to renegotiate their intentions and land-use entitlements that have already been issued for campus industrial development in the northern third of the valley.
At least one major landowner there is receptive to the idea.
“They’re right on, frankly,” said John Sobrato, chairman of the Sobrato Development Corp., which owns 300 acres at the corner of Bailey and Santa Teresa.
Sobrato agreed that the original 1,100 acre North Coyote area should be considered for mixed use, and suggested up to half as many adjacent acres should also be targeted for such development to help cover infrastructure costs.
“I think the housing ought to be intermixed right with the industrial,” he said. “This works … We’re not talking heavy industrial. We’re talking engineering and software type uses.
“The campus industrial users don’t want housing on their site, but there’s nothing wrong with having it adjacent to it.”
The vision also assumes access by expanded transit service, something that’s admittedly questionable at the moment because of unprecedented financial woes at the county’s bus and transit agency, the Valley Transportation Authority.
Edwin Chan, aide to Santa Clara County Supervisor Don Gage – whose district includes the Coyote Valley – said the report is interesting and appears to seek common ground in terms of desires for open space and smart growth. He said Gage will likely add his comments when the report is presented to the special committee appointed by San Jose leaders to craft an official Coyote Valley specific plan.
The document is not meant to be a mandate, but is presented as suggestions that the city of San Jose can use as it crafts that plan, said Jeremy Madsen, the alliance’s field director.
“We see this as a resource for them to flesh out ideas,” he said.
