We’ve got a vague yet pervasive sense of frustration and
bewilderment about the entire Coyote Valley development proposal,
process and reaction.
We’ve got a vague yet pervasive sense of frustration and bewilderment about the entire Coyote Valley development proposal, process and reaction.
Evidence is rapidly mounting that the project should be abandoned. The City of San Jose is nowhere close to satisfying its own “development triggers” that must be met before earth will be moved in the region just north of Morgan Hill.
Those conditions include a requirement that the north part of Coyote Valley have 5,000 new jobs. Cisco Systems, once touted as the largest employer heading to Coyote Valley, will very likely not build there at all.
A five-year economic forecast projecting balanced budgets or surpluses for the City of San Jose, stability in the city’s financial relationship with the state, and city services restored to 1993 levels round out the “triggers” that would allow development in Coyote Valley.
Needless to say, these conditions are not about to be met anytime soon.
It all adds up to a completely unnecessary development, one that would have a dramatic negative effect on our county. But San Jose City Council members don’t need to take our word for it. They just need to listen to their own budget director.
“Until things pick up or we reduce services we will probably have shortfalls for the foreseeable future,” Larry Lisenbee said last month. “Until I see some indications that the job situation is improving, I will caution the City Council that they should not expect any upswing in the Silicon Valley economy.”
Further evidence of the redundancy of this project comes in the vast amounts of empty office and warehouse space gathering dust in San Jose and its northern suburbs, the real heart of Silicon Valley.
Then there’s the news that the development will not have nearly enough water to meet the demands of the 80,000 residents in 25,000 homes and 50,000 workers planned for Coyote Valley. That’s just one of many environmental concerns about this proposal that has us scratching our heads and wondering: where are the tree huggers? We don’t understand why environmentalists aren’t lining up at the courthouse to file lawsuits to stop this development.
We encourage them to take a hard look at Coyote Valley, the process and the plan and to raise their objections now, loudly, and in court, before it is too late.
While it might be tempting to think San Benito County is too far away from the Coyote Valley to feel the impact of its development, recent history says otherwise. In an age where hour-long commutes are common, this project will indeed affect us, and our ability to provide infrastructure to our residents. Remember what happened to Hollister during the Silicon Valley gold rush. People poured in, looking for cheaper housing, and our roads, sewer systems and public safety services were stretched to capacity as a result.
Surely another 50,000 jobs just half an hour up the road will have similar drastic effects on our quality of life. If the San Jose City Council does not approach this project responsibly, the negative ripple effect with spread all the way down to bucolic San Benito County.
The frustration is low-level and pervasive, but it’s growing. We urge the San Jose City Council to put the brakes on this project before its hit with lawsuits from environmentalists, the Morgan Hill School District and neighboring communities.
There’s simply no sense in lining lawyers’ pockets for this unnecessary project that serves only to increase San Jose Mayor Ron Gonzales’ ego and home developers’ bank accounts.
