Twenty years ago, a development plan 40 miles from Hollister
wouldn’t have mattered much to locals.
Twenty years ago, a development plan 40 miles from Hollister wouldn’t have mattered much to locals.
But with San Benito County evolving into a Silicon Valley bedroom community, some fear a proposal to build 25,000 homes and create 50,000 jobs in southern San Jose could inflate local housing costs and leave a cash-strapped Hollister hankering for more infrastructure.
An ambition for two decades, the Coyote Valley development just north of Morgan Hill and about 40 miles from Hollister seems closer to becoming reality. Basically, the plan is to create a town twice the size of Gilroy.
San Jose has spearheaded the plan – encompassing 7,000 acres of open space located within its southern city limits and bordered by the boom town’s twisting freeways and mass of track housing.
Locals watching the plan’s progress think a domino-like effect could increase Sans Benito County’s population, spike the price of local homes and create a need for more schools. Those presumptions are backed by history: a population and housing price boom in Hollister during the 1990s that coincided with the growth of Silicon Valley.
Still, San Benito County so far hasn’t taken part in the latest chapter of Coyote Valley planning, under way since late 2002. No officials from San Benito were invited to the table, though the planning has been open for comments during periodic public workshops.
“We continue to say it and we mean it – the process is entirely open,” said David Vossbrink, communications director for San Jose Mayor Ron Gonzales.
The Coyote Valley Specific Plan Task Force is composed of 20 officials and business and organizational leaders – all from the Silicon Valley area. Gonzales co-chairs the task force.
Santa Clara County Supervisor Don Gage, who represents southern Santa Clara, also sits on the task force. He believes the development of Coyote Valley would affect San Benito County, and that local officials should be at those workshops.
“I don’t see many of them,” Gage said of outside counties’ officials. “For some of them, it’s not even on their radar screens, which it should be.”
During the last round of Coyote Valley planning a few years back before the dot-com bust, an environmental report concluded most of its employees would find housing north of the development, according Vossbrink.
But San Benito residents who experienced the local boom that has doubled the Hollister population in the past two decades don’t believe that. And Gage also thinks the trend of Silicon Valley commuters living in Hollister would continue with a new populace and such drastic job growth being so close.
Hollister Planning Commissioner and local Realtor Ray Pierce thinks the effects of developing Coyote Valley would be felt as far west as Santa Cruz and as far south as Monterey, he said.
“It’s great for their tax base in Santa Clara County, and then the impact would be felt in all these other counties,” Pierce said.
Pierce called himself a “systems kind of guy” and believes San Benito and other regional communities should be more involved in Coyote Valley’s direction.
“All counties it’s going to impact in the area should be involved in the planning process,” Pierce said.
Pierce pointed out that such drastic job growth in San Jose would intensify the local housing market demand.
The effect of that increased demand here would swell the local population. He believes that could amplify traffic congestion on roadways and create a need to boost the police and fire departments, Pierce said.
But those workers – like many local commuters do now – also would spend much of their money out of town and further damage the local sales tax base, said Gordon Machado, a San Benito County planning commissioner instrumental in drafting Measure G, the growth control initiative voters rejected on the March ballot.
“I’m sure it’s going to be hot and heavy for awhile before something happens,” said Machado, likening the San Jose development to San Benito’s heated debate over Measure G. “It certainly would affect us.”
San Benito County Supervisor Reb Monaco was the only board member to vote against Measure G when it first passed as an ordinance in April 2003. He thinks the project’s planning carries a more “innovative approach” than most major developments.
Monaco also believes San Benito residents and officials should be involved.
“It could be positive in some people’s perspectives and negative in others,” Monaco said of the development.
There’s no doubt one local institution would be largely affected. The Gavilan College District stretches geographically from San Benito to the expanse of space where Coyote Valley would build out.
The district currently serves a population 115,000 people in San Benito, Gilroy and Morgan Hill. Coyote Valley would boost the district by about 80 percent, according to Gavilan President Steve Kinsella.
He said the San Jose task force initially left Gavilan out of the planning process, but the college has since had a voice on the planning process, Kinsella said.
“If they are going forward with that level of growth, then Gavilan needs to be considered as part of the equation,” he said.
Kinsella said the added resources Gavilan would invest in a campus north of Morgan Hill wouldn’t detract from plans to construct a satellite campus in Hollister. Both projects were included in the $108 million bond passed by voters in March.
“I don’t see us trading off services in one area to provide services in another,” Kinsella said.
For more information on the Coyote Valley planning, call (408) 277-4576.
Kollin Kosmicki can be reached at 637-5566, ext. 331 or at
kk*******@fr***********.com
.
