Motherhood and apple pie…

In every city neighboring Santa Clara, except San Jose, the plan Fairfield Residential submitted would fall under “high-density” or even “very high-density” housing.  It is only in Santa Clara that they are able to use the rather innocuous sounding “medium” and “moderate” density designations, probably to support projects like Rivermark.

Rivermark was a planned community in an area next to a main thoroughfair (Montague Expressway) that did not impinge greatly on the space or resources of the existing residents.  They didn’t just add more people; they added a school, a new library, streets to easily access the housing, a shopping center with a supermarket and restaurants, and recreational areas for people to relax and enjoy themselves.  They didn’t intrude on a neighborhood or have to worry about fitting with an existing community of permanent residents.  They didn’t develop in an area where the majority of the streets are a single lane in each direction and the biggest streets in close proximity are only two lanes wide.  They developed close to industry and created what is in essence a miniature town on over 150 acres of land.  It almost made sense to be there and it increased the value of the property on the other side of Montague Expressway by providing places for people to go.

The Fairfield Residential project is a different animal altogether.

Fairfield Residential focuses on the letter of their allowances and argues points such as “the plan they submitted would reduce the density allowed by the general plan” while ignoring the density itself, the effects of the density on the existing populace, and the compatibility of the density with the surrounding areas.  Just because the state has a legal limit of 0.08% blood alcohol content doesn’t mean you should get behind the wheel and drive if you blow a 0.079%.  Fairfield Residential asks us to accept (hopes we will?) what they have offered because the ruling the City Council made several years ago allows them to make it worse if they so choose.  I’ll file their comment under “New and Improved, but still not good” (Sure it cuts your arm off, but it used to kill you).  The attitude of the developers certainly sets a tone for what kind of neighbors they will be if they are allowed into our neighborhoods.

Our objections are not “Not In My BackYard” objections to commercial housing development on the Kaiser Property in general.  Any resident would fully support a project that was thought-out and kept the welfare of the existing residents in mind.  Although the phrase heard most often is “high-density”, the heart of the issue is quality of life.  A project focused on quality of life would not only entice future home owners to come, but may in fact convince current residents to stay.  We just need to be convinced that both the city and the developer of the land actually have the welfare of our existing community in mind when they insist on what is best for us by submitting a plan without talking to the residents until after the fact.  We as a community need to be seen as part of the process, not just as objections to be overcome or work around, which is the overall feeling of how Fairfield is treating us.  And we as a city need to be a destination, not just a stopping point.

Fairfield Residential needs to stop focusing on the details of the “coulds” and “cans” of the general plan and other inanimate objects and focus on the people in the neighborhood.  They need to block out the shininess of their new development and look around at what is already here.  They need to stop measuring data with machines and spend some time driving, eating, and living in the community.

The City Council needs to stop looking at projects as campaign opportunities or lines on their resumes, but as legacies that will stay with the city and its residents.  The Planning Commission needs to look at the density not as a target, but as a tool to achieve something greater.  It’s really about quality of life.  It shouldn’t be a game for politicians who have plans for other offices later in life, or even financial gain in the short term, but a serious issue that affects the lives of thousands of people who simply want to live out their lives in the best city in the Bay Area.

The people of Santa Clara need to start taking their role in the city more seriously.  We need to realize that we are in this together and that if someone isn’t pulling the job may take longer or may not get done at all.  We need to vote for our representatives not based on single events in their past histories, but on net long-term effects.  We should support people who help our city and remember those that don’t.

We need reasons for people to make the move to Santa Clara itself, both in terms of home ownership and careers, not just for renters to stop here temporarily while they work and eventually buy houses elsewhere.  It is about affordable home ownership, not just affordable rents.  It is about good homes, not just more houses.  It is about being the heart of Silicon Valley, not being just a work-pool for neighboring cities.  It is about solid investment, not just cheap investment.  It is about personal quality of life, not private wealth creation.  Industry and jobs gave rise to the population originally; it is foolish to think that people will come just because there are houses when the jobs are moving farther and farther away.

When I first moved to Santa Clara, the only people I knew that had 45-minute commutes lived in Morgan Hill, Foster City, or San Leandro.  Today, it’s the average commute time for residents in the 95050 area code.

The growth should be planned and the density managed.  And the quality of life improved or maintained.  We have no downtown in Santa Clara due to poor planning, and our high-density developments seem to be based merely on land availability.  With every new high-density development that gets put in place, there is a strain put on existing commercial business, services, and utilities.  When the new developments do not address the existing problems, it seems reasonable that they will only get worse with the addition of more people.