Hollister citizens question Gavilan’s choice of location for a
future campus
Some residents of San Benito are expressing dismay over the
location Gavilan College officials have chosen for a future
satellite campus adjacent to the Hollister airport.
On the heels of receiving criticism from San Jose planners over
the Gavilan Board of Trustee’s choice to build a new campus serving
South Valley in the future city of Coyote Valley, college officials
are now learning that some residents of San Benito County are as
unhappy about their future campus
– primarily because it won’t be placed downtown. Officials
announced making a deal with landowner Ken Gimelli: $4 million for
80 acres of flat, industrially-zoned land across from the airport
about four miles from the heart of Hollister’s downtown.
Hollister citizens question Gavilan’s choice of location for a future campus
Some residents of San Benito are expressing dismay over the location Gavilan College officials have chosen for a future satellite campus adjacent to the Hollister airport.
On the heels of receiving criticism from San Jose planners over the Gavilan Board of Trustee’s choice to build a new campus serving South Valley in the future city of Coyote Valley, college officials are now learning that some residents of San Benito County are as unhappy about their future campus – primarily because it won’t be placed downtown. Officials announced making a deal with landowner Ken Gimelli: $4 million for 80 acres of flat, industrially-zoned land across from the airport about four miles from the heart of Hollister’s downtown.
“It’s going to induce sprawl,” said Joe Morris, a member of Vision San Benito, a group of county business people and agriculturalists. “The site has serious consequences for San Benito County and the City of Hollister. A college can be a real asset for the city, all the things that go along with intellectual curiosity, the vitality of youth, but that’s not going to happen because it’s four miles out. It’s going to shackle us in the future.”
Sheila Stevens, owner of She’s Apparel and president of the Hollister Downtown Association, said she, too, was disappointed in the choice.
“We were hoping it [would] be downtown, up on [Vista] Park Hill,” Stevens said.
When told that college officials believe a downtown campus would worsen traffic and parking problems in the small downtown area, Stevens did not hesitate to shoot a rebuttal.
“Excuse me, we have a big huge parking garage that isn’t being used,” Stevens said, referring to the Briggs Building, a little-used multi-storied parking garage that contains several first-floor offices already used for Gavilan College classes. “Thank God Gavilan is in there because that’s the only thing that makes that building go.”
The Briggs Building, referred to by many downtowners as Hollister’s “$6 million white elephant,” could alleviate parking for a small college campus, but college officials say that doesn’t begin to solve the problems of building a campus that will eventually be larger than the existing Gavilan College in Gilroy, when build-out is finished in 2050 or 2060.
“We’re not sure people really understand the scale of what kind of campus we’ll have here,” said Gavilan spokeswoman Jan Bernstein Chargin. “It’s not just a bigger version of what’s going on in the Briggs Building. It will have athletic fields, a student center, a complete campus … everything we see at the Gilroy campus we need room for there in San Benito.”
Dave Rodriguez and Jim Goodell, whose Pasadena-based company Public Private Ventures specializes in finding land for growing colleges, assisted Gavilan officials in finding suitable land parcels for the future campus extensions. Rodriguez and Goodell said they looked extensively at other properties, including Park Hill where Hollister’s Public Works Department is currently housed, and other parcels within the sphere of influence of Hollister – the area where growth is likely to occur, near city services. They said the Gimelli property was by far the most logical location.
Moreover, said Goodell, the downtown area might expand as far as the airport by 2050, making the future campus, indeed, a downtown one. They completely disagree that the choice of location could induce sprawl, as rancher Morris said, either in housing or strip malls.
“The idea of smart growth doesn’t necessarily mean you plop a college in the middle of a downtown, an already impacted area,” Goodell said. “We can work cooperatively with the city, make bike paths, walking trails and transportation links.”
Rodriguez said the Gimelli parcel near the airport was also important because it is industrially zoned. The choice, he added, adheres to Hollister’s General Plan, the blueprint for how the city will grow in the next 10 years.
“It’s industrious land use,” Rodriguez said. “It’s a smart idea because the college is the catalyst to achieving the economic development angle they [the city] want,” and added there wasn’t a better area to have an economic industrious boom when the center of learning trades and business will be in the same place – at the college.
Morris does not agree. He said the college is supposed to be partnering with other organizations in the community, including the San Benito County Library and the YMCA, and that putting the campus next to an airport that has plans to grow itself will not benefit the organizations or anyone in the community interested in higher learning.
“Park Hill was not that expensive,” Morris said. “It’s not acceptable. A number of people I’ve talked to would like to help Gavilan College think this thing through, to benefit the groups that I mentioned. The problem with this decision is that it’s based on the wrong parameters, on what state bureaucrats want. That’s not the way these decisions should be made.”
He also said putting the campus by the airport is incongruous to the plans forged by his group, Vision San Benito.
“Vision San Benito has a draft of a vision statement we’ve been working on for two years,” Morris added. “No where does it say we really want far-flung communities and use far-flung fossil fuels. We’ve got to work on it together. I want them to re-look at any place in close proximity to downtown Hollister. We don’t have any problem with Gavilan’s board members or anything like that, but we just need more creativity.”
Some have questioned the wisdom of placing the campus across the road from a small airport that many in the community want to see eventually become a jetport. Bill Gere, manager of the Hollister Airport, said the decision could have an effect on plans for airport expansion, but he’s more miffed about being left out of the decision process for the campus location.
“It certainly doesn’t help with future airport expansion because it’s taking away land,” Gere said. “No one has ever had a dialogue with us about this location. Did they ever talk to the city council? The people I hear talking in town are saying money is tight all over. The taxpayers are paying for this expansion so it better have multiple uses.”
It definitely wouldn’t interfere with their expansion,” said Steve Kinsella, president of Gavilan College. He also said that he and others are working with Gere now to hash out what kind of aviation courses they will be adding to the curriculum. Gavilan has had an instructor program the Hollister Airport for some 35 years.
Kinsella, too, believes the industrial and business-park landscape of the area is in sync with the goals of the college.
“We design educational programs for the business and industry we serve in that area,” he said.
Bernstein Chargin said the college held dozens of open meetings about the location issue. She acknowledges the discussions were limited to trustee meetings held at the Gilroy campus, but the agendas were publicized in local newspapers and local community television announcements.
More importantly, Kinsella said, the site selection process is one conducted strictly between the state and trustees. That’s the law, Kinsella said, but when and if the state OKs it all, college officials will launch a series of public forums on the expansion, in Hollister.
Bernstein Chargin and her associates were quick to say the Gimelli land deal is “not a done deal” and that they will hold public meetings in Hollister about the issue while state bureaucrats peruse their draft choice for the San Benito campus. The location must pass a rigorous battery of state requirements, including adherence to the state Environmental Quality Act.
The bottom line is that, while they may reap the benefits of local taxpayer money when a bond is passed, community colleges are overseen by the state. Local governments, not even a board of supervisors, have jurisprudence over college districts.
When the state college bureaucrats go over the plans, they might not be too thrilled about an airport safety buffer zone, which rims the south end of the parcel.
“We do have a number of stipulations to pass with the state, and if we don’t pass them all, then we’re out looking again,” Kinsella said.
