Measures A and B regarding the BAREC site passed rather easily, garnering 50% more YES votes than NO votes for each. This isn’t surprising, really, considering that SummerHill spent a lot of money turning the issue of high-density housing and for-sale houses on public land into a senior housing issue and a marketing campaign for “Santa Clara Gardens”. The plan in general is not necessarily a bad plan: 110 houses on 10 acres of land, 1 acre of public park, 162 senior housing units on about 3.5 acres, with an additional open “garden” area for the seniors on the remaining 2.5 acres. In fact, given the amount of work SummerHill will put in to clean up the area and develop an essentially abandoned lot and the potential revenue the project may generate, it may not be bad for the city as a whole.

People did take offense with SummerHill’s tactics:

  • They seemed to imply that a vote against their development was also a vote against senior housing.
  • They lumped the 2-acre senior “garden” area in with the 1-acre park and marketed it as a full 3 acres of public open space in their “argument in favor” sheet.
  • They never clarified that the 162 senior units were going to be on only 3.5 acre of land (that’s almost 50 units per square acre) in discussions and, based on notes of the public meetings, talked only in terms of the full 17 acres.

And even with as much work as the people against the project seemed to have put in, there really wasn’t a strong defense. The counter-proposal was nice, but not realistic given the cost to purchase the land, clean it up, and provide on-going management for the proposed gardens. To top that off, the people against the development seemed to have stopped trying as hard as they needed to once they received enough signatures to put the measures on the ballot. There weren’t any major updates to either BAREC web site after the petitions were completed.

No, the disturbing thing about the BAREC project was the City’s response to the people and the issues. The complaints made by the SaveBAREC organization seem much too familiar to just ignore. Consider (from the argument against Measure A):

FLAWED PUBLIC PROCESS

  • The City of Santa Clara refused to consider all options for BAREC’s future.
  • Only one plan was seriously considered by the City of Santa Clara for this historic site.
  • Public input was consistently ignored.

Whether right or wrong, these points do feel familiar, and that’s a concern. The issues the SaveBAREC organization brought up were also familiar:

[Measure A will:]

  • Negatively impact traffic on already congested roads
  • Strain city facilities and services
  • Not support Smart Growth Principles

So rather than simply complain about these issues, the Pepper Tree Neighborhood Association will take the time to validate our concerns and provide as much real data as we can to support our arguments. Hopefully, the City of Santa Clara will be more receptive than they have been viewed to be in the past and will take our issues seriously.

Forebodingly, the City of Santa Clara seemed to have taken the stance that they could not purchase or develop the land themselves without the help of SummerHill, yet they moved to put us over $50 million in debt to try to bring the ‘49ers to Santa Clara. The SAN FRANCISCO ‘49ers. A personal concern is that they will try to finance the shortfall by allowing more and more high-density housing — under the guise of medium and moderate density — with less planning, thought, and development than we deserve.

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