Concerned Santa Clara

After talking with many residents in the Pepper Tree neighborhood, it was clear that few have even heard of the Santa Clara Square project. This project would put a mix of High Density housing, structured parking, commercial/retail space, and offices into buildings 8 stories, 6 stories, and 5 stories tall right on the corner of El Camino Real and Lawrence Expressway.

Paraphrasing from the Final EIR information:

The project site is located at 3610 and 3700 El Camino Real, at the southwesterly quadrant of El Camino Real and Lawrence Expressway (in the shopping area near Kohl’s that used to have the K-Mart). The site includes the following Assessor’s Parcel Number(s): 313-06-002 and -004.

The project is a Planned Development rezoning application to allow the construction of a mixed-use development consisting of single family attached residential units above office and commercial/retail space on approximately 12.6 acres. The project includes up to 490 residential units, up to 171,000 square feet of commercial/retail space and up to 12,300 square feet of office space. The residential units will be separately sold condominiums. The 171,000 square feet of commercial/retail space includes 147,741 square feet of commercial/retail space that is currently on the site. The existing 111,495 square foot Kohl’s store will remain and the free-standing restaurant space along El Camino Real and the commercial/retail space east of the Kohl’s building will be incorporated into the new commercial/retail space.

Building heights along El Camino Real will be 5 stories in height while buildings along the southerly boundary will be 6 stories in height and be located approximately 70 feet from the existing 2-story residential buildings in the area. 8-story buildings made up of four stories of residential floors on top of four-level structured parking are within the center of the project along Lawrence Expressway and the mid-site portion along Halford Avenue.

It is certain that one of the reasons residents in areas just outside of 300 feet of the project don’t know about the project is that the City of Santa Clara had no requirement to notify those outlying residents and, in keeping with their standard practices, chose not to do so.

For anyone that has time, I would recommend reading the City of Santa Clara’s responses to the concerns raised by both residents and public agencies. It is disturbing to see in print the City of Santa Clara’s attitude towards the density of the site (pages A-43 to A-44), the effect on the value of homes (page A-45), notification of residents affected by the project (pages A-48- A-49), the lack of public recreational space (page A-51), and the effects on traffic (pages A-51 to A-55). In short:

Increased Density: The city does not deal with the concern and instead falls back on the Association of Bay Area Governments’ (ABAG) numbers and the decisions the city made in 2002 to comply with those numbers. They explain that El Camino Real and Lawrence Expressway are major thoroughfares, but make no mention of how the density will impact the traffic or potential future residents, to make no mention of the people already living in the area.

Lowered Real Estate Values: They note the comments on lower home values, but cite the CEQA Guidelines 15358(b) and state that social and economic impacts, such as changes in real estate value, are not required to be evaluated as part of the EIR. Then they follow the City of Santa Clara standard practice and choose not to address the lowered real estate issue.

300-foot Notification: Residents in both Santa Clara and neighboring Sunnyvale complained that they were not notified, but Santa Clara stuck to standard practice and explained that home owners within 300 feet were notified in accordance with State law. Mailing addresses were not requested from people who attended the neighborhood meeting in 2006 and e-mail addresses and phone numbers are being used instead to obtain addresses for future mailings. It is very clear that Santa Clara is taking a “least that we can do” stance.

Increased use of area parks / school fields: I quote: “The comments are acknowledged. As stated on page 76 of the Draft EIR, the project would increase the demand for public park facilities / school fields in the area. There is no way to quantify such usage. Increased public park usage is not a significant environmental impact unless new facilities are deemed to be required as a result of the project.” Isn’t this report supposed to determine if “new facilities are deemed to be required as a result of the project”? Sunnyvale’s concerns regarding the project are from the point of view of neighborhoods affected by the new development — neighborhoods like ours: “There should be a discussion of the impact that 490 homes at the proposed site would have on the parks located within the City of Sunnyvale.” They go on to ask: “The amount of on-site open space and recreation does not appear to remove the need for use of a larger park area. Does the amount of usable open space located on site meet the requirements of the City of Santa Clara?”

Traffic and Circulation concerns: The City of Santa Clara states: “The evaluation of operational and site access issues are not considered CEQA issues, nor are any identified operational deficiencies considered impacts”; then they choose to follow Santa Clara standard practice and ignore them. Later, when addressing existing congestion at El Camino Real and Lawrence Expressway: “the existing plus approved level of service at the intersection of El Camino Real and Lawrence Expressway would remain unchanged with the addition of project traffic; therefore, the project’s impact at that intersection would be less-than-significant.” Are they saying the addition of 490 residences and almost 200,000 square feet of renovated commercial/retail/office space will have no effect? Lastly, the City of Santa Clara closes with this observation: “Increased traffic does not directly relate to increased accidents.” At least their sense of humor is intact.

The eye-opening thing for me is not just how bad some of these responses are, but that they come from a city that is chartered to look after its citizens. Our city. You and me. It is disheartening to hear the City of Santa Clara give its “standard practice” answer and then choose not to go even an inch farther than required.

More to come.

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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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The Pepper Tree Neighborhood Association will give its first presentation in front of the Santa Clara Planning Commission on Wednesday, 9 January 2008 at City Hall, located at 1500 Warburton Ave, Santa Clara, CA 95050. The meeting starts at 7:00 p.m.

The presentation will cover alternative plans for the Kaiser site at 900 Kiely Boulevard. Given Fairfield Residential’s planning application, alternative plans are even more desired as Fairfield’s plan may more than double the current average density of the area.

We would like as many concerned citizens of Santa Clara there as possible to show support for our city and its future.

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Welcome, all.

We are in the process of gathering the information to put on this site. Thank you for your patience.

We are not against well-planned developments, but the City of Santa Clara seems obsessed with densification without regard for existing conditions, or even existing residents.  You can’t just put people and houses in an area because you feel like it: it has to make sense.  Traffic, parking, parks, recreation, families, air quality, schools, grocery stores, restaurants, utilities… it has to make sense.

Santa Clara is a Mission City.  People come here for reasons different from the reasons they would go to New York or Los Angeles, or even San Francisco.  Let’s think about that.

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