Concerned Santa Clara

First a short notice:
The meeting scheduled for tonight, 20 February 2008, with Fairfield Residential has been postponed until next week (updates pending).

Now the real news:
Just a reminder that there will be a Scoping Meeting on Thursday, 21 February 2008, to address the Notice of Preparation (NOP) the city sent out regarding the project at 900 Kiely Blvd (the former Kaiser hospital site). There will be two sessions that cover the same material. Residents only need to attend one of them; the second session is for residents who cannot attend the first.

• First Session:

Thursday, 21 February at 3:00 p.m. in the City Council chamber at City Hall.

• Second Session:

Thursday, 21 February at 7:00 p.m. in the City Council chamber at City Hall.

It is possible that these sessions will be moved to the City Hall cafeteria room, which is downstairs.

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We presented in front of the City Council tonight — Item 9b on the agenda. The presentation we gave follows later on this post, but I thought it would be entertaining to go over the history of our struggle to present.

We originally submitted our written petition — including a CD with the presentation, as well as a printed copy — on 13 December 2007, with the intent on making the 8 January 2008 City Council meeting. We were bumped to the 22 January meeting due to agenda issues concerning the ‘49ers. On the Thursday before the meeting on the 22nd, we were told that City Hall had misplaced the CD containing the presentation we had intended to give. I sent another copy of the presentation via e-mail to both Gloria Sciara and the city clerk’s office the next day. A second call then told us that our agenda item was being pushed back due to special agenda items concerning the ‘49ers. There was a special City Council meeting held on the 15th to address the ‘49ers which lasted until midnight, and any items not covered were moved to the special agenda section of the regular City Council meeting on the 22nd. Because they could not guarantee that the meeting on the 22nd would not also last until midnight — special agenda items are handled first — our presentation was effectively moved to the next City Council meeting on 12 February. One day before the meeting (yesterday), Kirk Harter from City Hall informed us that they had misplaced our presentation — again — and that I would have to send them another copy. I sent another copy — slightly updated — directly to Kirk shortly after noon on 22 February.

The funny thing is, the copy they used during the presentation was the one we originally submitted back in December, almost two months earlier. What’s going on here?

The original presentation was created before Fairfield Residential’s application had been submitted. There were some inaccuracies in the numbers and many of the things we know now were not included. Remember, the original presentation was created two months ago with the intent of presenting it over one month ago — and we weren’t allowed to change it for tonight’s meeting. So we improvised. Just a little.

The slides still remained with their original text. Instead of reading the text directly, different text was written to be read while the various slides were shown. I tried to keep it relevant, but without adequate time to practice, I ended up taking more time than allotted. We were given 3 minutes to speak; I probably needed 3.5 to 4 minutes. I didn’t think it would be too much of an issue because the speaker for agenda item 9a went well over his time limit and was not stopped; he had well over 6 minutes. I was a little surprised to be cut short with only one slide remaining.

Here are the presentation slides, along with the text of what was read while the slides were shown. The text is a little bit of a rehash stuff that was previously on this site, but it was probably the first time the City Council heard it.

Click here to download a PDF file of the entire slide presentation.

There are many new higher density developments in Santa Clara, especially in the area around Kiely Blvd and Homestead. The densities are much higher than the existing neighborhoods; and if you look, the majority of housing around Kaiser is already higher density apartments and townhouses.

Even Measures A and B only presented 16 units per acre, with allowances for a public park area. We need densities that will not only benefit future residents of Santa Clara, but also the current residents. As the city expands in terms of people, we need the safety, services, industry, and quality of life to grow along with it. The city’s primary concern should include personal quality of life, not just private wealth creation — or even taxes. That’s what taxes are for.

As more and more people move into our neighborhoods — not just the city — we need to address how the people are taken care of. With every new higher-density development that gets put in place, there is a strain put on existing commercial business, services, and utilities. When new developments do not address the existing problems, it seems reasonable that they will only get worse with the addition of more people. Spend some time at our post office. Buy groceries at our supermarkets. Drive our morning and evening commutes.

The average commute for our area is over 40 minutes. With reduced industry in the city, residents have no choice but to go farther and farther away to support their families. Single income families are rarer — at least by choice. People need places to work and places to relax, not just places to live. That’s what living is — not just a place. More cars also require more parking — and spaces are not just about numbers, but the distribution and use of those spaces. When cars get bigger or more plentiful, we’ll find more of those cars on the streets.

Even with “green plans”, more units require more facilities, services, and utilities. And Kaiser hasn’t moved out; they’ve simply moved… and expanded. The service and utility requirements for our area have not been dimished, and every time a lot is replaced with higher density housing, those needs increase.

People don’t just need places to live, they need space. And Privacy. And Safety. When people make investments in property — their homes — they also need assurances that their investments can be protected and that their families are safe.

We would like the density plans looked at again, from the perspective of the people who live in Santa Clara already. It is about Quality of Life. The development at 900 Kiely is being presented based on a decision over three years ago. In that time, many things have happened:

• The number of higher-density housing has increased quite a bit in the surrounding areas.
• There are more cars per household.
• There are fewer grocery stores to support more people.
• People are spending more time on the road to go to work.

We need development that is compatible with the community that is already here — what the environment will support. We need places to go, not just more people. We need ways to use fewer cars, not have more cars.

We need the city to stop focusing on the details of the “coulds” and “cans” of the general plan, density goals, and other inanimate concepts and focus on the people in the neighborhood.

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 long-term investment, not just short-term gain. 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, or regulated to 30 days per year during a sports season.

Santa Clara should be a city for the people, not just a city full of people.

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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.

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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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Of course not. They would still be the SAN FRANCISCO ‘49ers. Taking a page from the Angels, they could possibly be the SAN FRANCISCO ‘49ers of Santa Clara, but they would never be the Santa Clara ‘49ers.

So why are we so caught up in this issue? As a San Francisco ‘49ers fan I would be honored and thrilled, but as a Santa Clara homeowner, I must admit I have other things on my mind. Jamie McLeod was the only person on the City Council to vote against the ‘49ers in Santa Clara, and I find it hard to disagree with her. Here’s the scoop straight from the San Jose Mercury:

Santa Clara City Council OKs Talks on ‘49ers Stadium

Santa Clara Votes 6-1 to Move Forward on Stadium

It feels like Jamie got a little bit of flack for her individuality and her thoughtfulness, which seems to have prompted this:

49ers stadium plan is bad for Santa Clara

Whether you are for or against the move, I would encourage you to read all of the articles and note the responses from both sides. Then put it in context with what is happening in other parts of Santa Clara. How will Santa Clara make up for the money we are short? Hopefully not more high-density housing in the middle of our R-6 residential areas.

And then read the letter from Brian Chang:

From the readers of the Mercury News

Just a thought.

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The presentation we had planned to give on 22 January 2008 has been moved to 12 February 2008.

After first being told that City Hall had misplaced the CD containing the slide show we had intended to give, a second call then told us that our agenda item was being pushed back due to special agenda items concerning the ‘49ers. [Update: I just received an e-mail stating that the original CD has been located.] There was a special City Council meeting held on the 15th to address the ‘49ers which lasted until midnight, and any items not covered were moved to the special agenda section of the regular City Council meeting on the 22nd. Because they could not guarantee that the meeting on the 22nd would not also last until midnight — special agenda items are handled first — our presentation was effectively moved to the next City Council meeting on 12 February.

The meeting for the ‘49ers was standing-room only; people who left to go the restroom were given tickets to re-enter the meeting room in an attempt to manage the number of people inside. Although we certainly don’t expect to see the same numbers for our density presentation, wouldn’t it be nice?

Original announcement:

The Pepper Tree Neighborhood Association will express concerns about high-density housing to the Santa Clara City Council on Tuesday, 12 February 2008. The meeting will start at 7:00 p.m. in City Hall, located at 1500 Warburton Ave, Santa Clara, CA 95050. See the Locations link above for information on how to get to City Hall.

Although the Kaiser Permanente/Fairfield Residential project is problematic, it is in many ways merely an implementation of the decisions the Santa Clara City Council and Planning Commission made several years ago when they re-zoned the property at 900 Kiely Blvd. By focusing purely on higher-density future development for the purpose of low-cost apartments, city officials have largely ignored the effects on the quality of life and desires of existing long-term residents. Cities don’t grow because there is plenty of rental housing; cities grow when they become, and remain, good places to stay. We need to ensure that this is understood and remains a top priority for the sitting City Council and Planning Commission.

In neighboring cities, like Sunnyvale and Milpitas, anything over 27 units per acre is seen as Very High Density development. It is in Santa Clara mainly that this density is seen as Moderate Density, with High Density not even listed in the Housing Element of the General Plan. Although we need to focus on revenue generation and affordable housing, it should not come at the expense of quality of life, not just for local residents, but the rest of the city. The City Council and Planning Commissions should not be agencies to fight against, but servants of the permanent residents and registered voters.

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[Update: Due to special agenda items pertaining to the potential deal between the city and the ‘49ers football organization, the presentation originally scheduled for 22 January has been moved to 12 February. ]

The Pepper Tree Neighborhood Association will express concerns about high-density housing to the Santa Clara City Council on Tuesday, 22 January 2008. The meeting will start at 7:00 p.m. in City Hall, located at 1500 Warburton Ave, Santa Clara, CA 95050.

Although the Kaiser Permanente/Fairfield Residential project is problematic, it is in many ways merely an implementation of the decisions the Santa Clara City Council and Planning Commission made several years ago when they re-zoned the property at 900 Kiely Blvd. By focusing purely on higher-density future development for the purpose of low-cost apartments, city officials have largely ignored the effects on the quality of life and desires of existing long-term residents. Cities don’t grow because there is plenty of rental housing; cities grow when they become, and remain, good places to stay. We need to ensure that this is understood and remains a top priority for the sitting City Council and Planning Commission.

In neighboring cities, like Sunnyvale and Milpitas, anything over 27 units per acre is seen as Very High Density development. It is in Santa Clara mainly that this density is seen as Moderate Density, with High Density not even listed in the Housing Element of the General Plan. Although we need to focus on revenue generation and affordable housing, it should not come at the expense of quality of life, not just for local residents, but the rest of the city. The City Council and Planning Commissions should not be agencies to fight against, but servants of the permanent residents and registered voters.

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