Coyote Valley development
– all 25,000 housing units, 50,000 jobs and 80,000 residents of
it – is coming to South Valley, ready or not.
We’d better be ready.
Coyote Valley development – all 25,000 housing units, 50,000 jobs and 80,000 residents of it – is coming to South Valley, ready or not.
We’d better be ready.
The city of San Jose, with its provincial rather than regional approach to planning the development, is going out of its way to make it difficult for South Valley residents and officials to have a voice in that planning process. It has not given a seat on the Coyote Valley Specific Plan Task Force to any elected officials from Morgan Hill or Gilroy or San Benito County, governments that will be impacted by the coming development. It has not given a seat to any elected officials from Gavilan Community College or the Morgan Hill Unified School District, agencies that are charged with educating the soon-to-be heavily populated valley residents.
Despite the numerous obstacles San Jose has set in South Valley’s path, we still have several ways to make our voices heard in the Coyote Valley planning process.
First, we call on Santa Clara County Supervisor Don Gage, a member of the task force, to be vocal in representing South Valley’s concerns. As the only elected official from South Valley serving on this key task force, he’s in an important position to make sure the concerns of Morgan Hill, Gilroy, MHUSD and Gavilan College are addressed. We ask him to pitch in to assist his neighboring county, one that shares like concerns such as traffic on Highway 25.
Gage needs to press San Jose officials to make realistic assumptions as they plan for the valley – for example, on how much traffic will head into Coyote Valley from the north and how much will come from the south – and he needs to twist some arms to obtain official representation on the task force for South Valley education officials.
Second, we urge city of Morgan Hill officials to take the lead in forming a “shadow” task force to closely follow the actions of the officials task force. The public agencies that ring Coyote Valley should send elected officials and staff members to every meeting of the Coyote Valley task force. They should use speaker time to ask difficult questions, to raise important issues, to keep South Valley’s quality of life – from traffic and pollution to schools and housing – at the forefront of the task force’s agenda. That includes representation from San Benito County. It would be foolish to assume that people working in Coyote Valley won’t look south for affordable homes.
A continuous and professional presence at the meetings – even if our officials aren’t at the dais – will give credence to South Valley’s comments on the Draft Environmental Impact Report when it is circulated. South Valley’s municipal and educational agencies should pool their resources to make sure the DEIR comments have maximum impact and effectiveness for South Valley’s quality of life.
Third, we urge South Valley residents to get educated and get involved in this issue. Visit the task force’s Web site – www.ci.san-jose.ca.us/coyotevalley – to learn what the task force is doing and when it is meeting. Visit the newspaper’s Web site – www.freelancenews.com – to find out what officials and your neighbors think.
This huge development will impact our lives in innumerable ways – it may change the shape of Gavilan’s district, it will stretch our resources, it will impact our commutes, our housing prices and our business. Some of those changes will be for the better, some will not. We need to work together to maximize the good and minimize the bad.
The Coyote Valley Specific Plan Task Force will hold a public workshop Saturday, May 15 from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the Southside Community Center, 5585 Cottle Road in San Jose. The task force will also meet Monday, May 17 at 151 Mission St., Room 202A, in San Jose, from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m.
South Valley officials, municipal and school employees and citizens: We owe it to ourselves to do everything we can to influence the Coyote Valley Planning process now, before it’s too late.
To respond to this editorial or comment on this issue, please send or bring letters to Editor, Hollister Free Lance, 350 Sixth St., Hollister, Calif. 95023 or fax to 637-4104 or e-mail to editor@
freelancenews.com
