Concerned Santa Clara

Thursday morning at 9:00 a.m. in the Santa Clara City Hall chambers, four cities got together to discuss how they could work together to prevent and resolve issues with large development projects, especially when they occur near city boundaries. The City of Sunnyvale initiated this meeting in response to public outcry from its citizenry over a number of projects in Santa Clara, including the Santa Clara Square proposal and Kaiser Hospital.

It felt like a small meeting despite the number of participants: 3 to 9 representatives from each of the cities present (Cupertino, Mountain View, Santa Clara, and Sunnyvale) and a dozen or so residents and press. Santa Clara Mayor Patricia Mahan and Sunnyvale Mayor Tony Spitaleri co-chaired the meeting, which followed a round table discussion format with little formality — and no microphones. Sorry, Van.

Mayor Mahan was very gracious, mixing with audience members prior to the meeting and expressing pleasure with our interest. After some brief introductions from Mayor Mahan and Mayor Spitaleri, the meeting got going.

(Sunnyvale) Visitors often think that the individual cities are one big city. Perhaps (this group) can meet on a quarterly basis.

One of the big issues driving this meeting: industrial/commercial and high-density development next to residential areas. This problem gets worse when the developments are in adjacent cities. Notifications should not be from one city’s staff to another city’s residents. Notification to its residents is the city’s job; cities should notify the staff of adjacent cities and let the local staff handle the notifications.

(My input) We need consistent definitions and consistent processes across cities. Zoning definitions may not be the same from city to city; zoning designations in one city may not even exist in another (like ITR). The numbers used to define Low-, Medium-, and High-density differ from city to city. In fact, Santa Clara’s definition for Medium-density is almost double that of other cities. Some cities notify both property owners as well as tennants; others notify property owners only. It would be unfortunate if a neighborhood was not notified of an adjacent project simply because the city that owned that project used a different standard for notifications.

To better see how the plans of the cities affect each other, the General Plans should show how neighboring cities are zoned along city lines, just so project planners keep them in mind; the General Plan map should not stop at the borders.

(Sunnyvale) All cities represented at this meeting are “pretty built-up already”; the cities have been around for some time and there is already a great deal of development. Do we want to fight the new developments in court and in EIRs, or can we have better cooperation? One way to minimize the problems at the tail end is to have more discussions up front.

There is a San Jose project (North First) that did not allow any input up front. San Jose borders so many cities that it should be at these discussions. Palo Alto as well.

(Sunnyvale) Perhaps there should be a “clip level” that would trigger and require intra-city meetings — for projects larger than a certain size, density, or proximity, for example.

Zoning changes should not be granted easily. Cities should try to follow the General Plan as closely as possible, especially at the borders where changes to zoning could come as a surprise to neighboring cities. Cities should share their General Plans and at least make the plans known to other cities. Currently Mountain View, Santa Clara, and Sunnyvale are looking at land use or General Plan updates, and there are many opportunities to share information and work together. Perhaps we could create an intra-city plan view, incorporating the General Plans from participating cities; then individual cities would simply try to stick to their own plan.

Cupertino Mayor Dolly Sandoval raised some concerns about forcing General Plans and zonings on future planners: “We don’t want to tie the hands of the city or developers.” She pointed out that there were several projects in Cupertino right now that could not have been achieved if the city did not have some possibilities to maneuver.

(My input) This is not to say that the zoning designations are to be written in stone, but exist as guidelines. It is not intended to prevent good development, but to make planners justify the exceptions. We are trying to reduce the current practice, in which zoning changes for projects seem to be a matter of course. It will try to prevent surprises that can happen when a high-density transit-oriented mixed-use development pops up next to residential housing when the area was originally zoned for commercial development.

(Santa Clara) The boundaries of cities are near high-transit areas: Lawrence Expressway, 85, 280.

The questions boil down to transit.

(Santa Clara) At the table we have discussions about shared vision and cooperation, but this is all voluntary. It’s great when it works. We need to look at the times when it breaks down.

(Sunnyvale) There will be disagreements. Let’s try to make the disagreements we have small disagreements.

Sunnyvale Council member Chris Moylan put a thought on the table: What if cities gave up some (legal) land use to a neighboring city in return for cooperation for large projects? Maybe neighboring cities could have some veto power over projects along the border that have negative impact on their residents or city.

Mayor Mahan joked that if that happened, she “would never get re-elected again.” In further discussions, it was not certain that any council or commission could have 100% legal control of a city anyway. Still, it is an interesting thought that could warrant some discussion to find an acceptible “middle ground” without throwing out the concept completely.

The problem with the projects tended to be notifications (not soon enough, not wide enough — not enough in general), level of community access to the discussions, and level of community input into the final proposal.

Mayor Mahan referenced a recent Architectural Meeting she chaired just a few weeks ago. She likes the size of the discussions, the public input given at these meetings, and the feedback capability those meetings provide. “Architectural Meetings should be (one of) the first times residents get to see a project, not the last.”  (I also attended that meeting and agree with Mayor Mahan’s sentiments.)

What if cities had an informal meeting — no legal ramifications — for large projects, with both the developer and the public? Mayor Mahan went on to state that she would have liked to have had someone from Sunnyvale at the Kaiser discussions.

(Cupertino) That leads to the question, “When does the process begin?”

(Santa Clara) We need early notifications to neighborhood meetings; developers should meet with residents before project application. Project notification could occur after filing, but before any entitlements are granted. Other cities and the community should be involved in any mitigation discussions.

Santa Clara Council member Jamie McLeod suggested noticing project Study Sessions. These advance discussions give people a few more weeks of notification on a project. For projects on the border, neighboring groups would be invited, including city planners.

(Cupertino) In general, cities give the same weight to non-residents as they do to residents.

(My input) This is important as residents in neighboring cities can be affected more than residents in the city the project belongs to (see Santa Clara Square, Kaiser, etc.). Borders are often crossed by high-transit roadways (El Camino Real, Stevens Creek, etc.) so it is hard to determine where project impacts start and end.

(Mountain View) Joint meetings may not be feasible in all cases because of “political spheres” at work.

(Sunnyvale) In determining impacts, perhaps school districts should be invited to these meetings as well.

Mayor Spitaleri then opened the meeting for public comment.

Art Schwartz, Sunnyvale

• Attends almost every City Council, Planning Commission, and Study Session meeting; learns the most from Study Sessions
• Fixed distance notifications (300 feet, 1000 feet, etc.) are not effective. Instead, take a map and define an area of impact. Notify all people (not just property owners) along the areas of impact.
• Try to find total conflict at the beginning of projects
• High-density is often not the problem, but high-rise; we need to identify and define impacts better.

Tap Merrick, Sunnyvale

• We need to improve transit. Transit plans should be easier to justify/do now that we have $4 per gallon gasoline.
• We need to have some consistency between plans and implementations. Follow the guidelines set out in zoning restrictions: if a limit is set at four stories, keep to the limit.

Doug Hosking, Santa Clara

• We need earlier notifications.
• Put the details of projects on the web (Santa Clara currently claims to have IT issues which prevent the details of some of the larger projects, like Marina Playa, from being available through the web)
• We should look into regional general plans — like the Grand Boulevard Initiative
• We need to study and address cumulative impacts of projects; we should work with developers to negotiate plans area-wide and not just lot-by-lot

Werner Gans, Sunnyvale

• The cities need to ask themselves two questions:

1. “What is FULL?”
2. “What are we going to do for water?”

• Forecasts are for drought. California is already on voluntary water use reduction, yet we keep adding more people.
• Bordering cities should have agreements on zoning for a two mile band along their borders.
• Advocate of putting high-density and high-rise developments where the jobs are.

Lisa Fernandez, Mercury News

• “How can all of these ideas be put in place now?”
• “Why are (the cities) talking about Open Dialogue and obvious issues now in 2008 when it has been a problem for the last 10 years?”

(Sunnyvale) [Concerning “Why now?”] There has been a gradual change in the mindset of communities. People value communities better/more.

Kevin, Santa Clara (my input)

Even though we have a great vision for El Camino Real with the Grand Boulevard Initiative, the individual projects cities approve still need to make sense for the particular area.

El Camino Real is an old road and was put together for a purpose different from what we may now desire. The developments along it are also old. Some proposals — while possibly in line with what the Grand Boulevard Initiative would support — may not be compatible with what is already here.

We may have to change the infrastructure — including transit — before projects are approved, or, better yet, proposed. You can’t just throw a ball to home plate; there has to be someone there to catch it.

Are we forgetting about Central Expressway as a potential transit corridor?

Mayor Spitaleri and Santa Clara Vice Mayor Joe Kornder closed the meeting. Basically, we need constant and consistent communication. Best practices should be shared. Cities should learn from each other. How does this happen? Planning staff from one city would attend meetings with planning staff from other cities to key projects.

In general, the meeting was positive. I was very pleased with both the discussions and the tone. But improvement meetings are like exercise: if you miss them too often, you end up in the same shape you started. Sometimes worse.  And you can’t short-cut the work.

[Update] Van and I did not “inadvertently” sit at the big table prior to the meeting. We started out in the audience, taking camp in the second row. Mayor Mahan explained that the meeting would not be formal like a City Council meeting and invited us to move to the table if there was room, especially since there would be no microphones and hearing could be a problem. Van and I moved to the front row. It wasn’t until after some discussion had gone on in the meeting that I saw the value of moving even closer and having a table on which to write.

I didn’t realize that there would be a separate public input section. I apologize to all participants.

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This is a letter sent by Tap Merrick, from Sunnyvale, concerning the Multi-city Council meeting held on Thursday, 26 June 2008:

Dear Neighbors,

A historic meeting occurred yesterday that may spark better relations between the north Santa Clara County cities, and more cohesive planned development.

The Sunnyvale City Council had initiated this meeting as a result of two cross border issues that kept coming before them, a third that had been implemented and a fourth, the 49ers’ Stadium proposal that may affect traffic through Sunnyvale, especially along route 237, Lawrence Expressway and 101. The first two, the “no left turn out of Kaiser onto Homestead” issue and the 490 condo unit/shopping center, Santa Clara Square, at Lawrence Expressway and El Camino Real, are events that may dramatically affect all of us here in Birdland East. The third issue, the development of the Mercado Shopping Center off of 101 and added neighborhood street traffic in North Sunnyvale has already been completed, and is impacting the Lawrence north of 101 Lakewood neighborhood.

This meeting was not a witch hunt, but instead an effort to get Sunnyvale, Santa Clara, Cupertino, Mountain View and Palo Alto working in tandem to manage employment, housing and traffic growth successfully with minimal pain to existing citizens. Because of my seating, I did not notice any representatives from Palo Alto, although the other cities were well represented, including the four other city mayors. Santa Clara had four council members, and Sunnyvale had five in attendance. Santa Clara Council Member Caserta, having spoken to a group of us two months ago, was conspicuous by his absence. Both cities also had their city managers, planning directors, and some staff taking part.

Santa Clara’s Mayor Patricia Mahan suggested that the City of San Jose might also be included in the future. This certainly makes sense for Santa Clara, which shares about half of it’s border with San Jose. I suspect that any meeting that included San Jose would quickly degenerate as most issues would focus solely on San Jose, and tend to ignore any other cross border issues which might arise.

As the Santa Clara Unified School District, Cupertino Union School District and the Fremont Union High School District all cross various city boundaries, it was suggested that perhaps they ought to be included in the new development planning process also.

Both Cupertino’s Mayor and Santa Clara’s City Manager stated that they tend to make decisions, and weigh all public comments when reviewing new developments, regardless of whether the comment is from one of their citizens or a neighboring city’s citizens. Cupertino’s Mayor cited the Cupertino Village redevelopment at Wolfe and Homestead. Santa Clara’s City Manager cited Santa Clara Square, and how they have stopped that development. I have to admit that I’m not confident that Santa Clara Square’s basic plan has actually been stopped.

Mayor Mahan did note the success Santa Clara had working with Sunnyvale’s Birdland neighbors in developing the new Kaiser facility at Lawrence Expressway and Homestead, and as a counter Sunnyvale’s Council Member John Howe noted that Kaiser had reignited some sparks as a result of wanting to change the “no left turn out of Kaiser onto Homestead” rules originally agreed to some 12 years ago.

There were several suggestions about various cross border issues being brought before neighboring City Councils in a timely manner, as well as being brought before neighboring City Planning Departments or Commissions. There was also a suggestion that joint planning commission meetings be held regarding new development projects being proposed.

Kevin, who inadvertently [It wasn’t inadvertent — Kevin] sat at the big table prior to anyone’s arrival, and was thus assumed to be part of some city’s contingent, suggested that all of the cities standardize their definitions and that all neighbor notifications go out to all residents, as Sunnyvale does, instead of going to just the property owners, as Santa Clara does.

Sunnyvale’s own Council Member Chris Moylan suggested that neighboring City Councils might be allowed veto power over projects, or particular aspects of projects. Mayor Mahan stated that if that were allowed, i.e. giving up some authority over one’s own developments, that she, or any other politician, would never be elected to anything ever again.

I would argue that fair play and political integrity is what gets most people elected, although there is certainly something to be said about campaign contributions coming from developers such as Santa Clara Square, LLC or the Gilmoors. In any case, it looks like Mayor Mahan plans to run for some office when her term expires, which I believe is in 2010.

As an exploratory meeting, nothing was decided, and no agreements were made. It was tentatively suggested that these Councils meet on a quarterly basis, although there again, nothing definitive was decided.

The public was allowed to make up 3 minutes worth of comments each at the end of the meeting. Art Schwartz, Werner Gans, Doug Hosking and I all provided comments. I will let them speak for themselves.

The first of my two points was that these cities needed to implement a comprehensive transit plan which will allow us all to commute to and from work without driving, and how at $4.00 a gallon for gasoline, this concept is much more realistic than at $2.00 a gallon. The second is that cities need to stick to their adopted plans. Santa Clara’s General Plan, for example, calls for housing to be no more than 4 stories tall, and yet, here we are with 9 story high rises being planned for Santa Clara Square.

As you are all aware, I tend to write some extensive missives on the various topics that I choose to tackle. Many of you read them, and I am sure, many of you don’t. It was heartening to me that Sunnyvale’s Mayor Spitaleri told me that he reads each and every letter/e-mail I send to them. No, he didn’t offer if he agreed with me or not, but the first step is to know they are listening. I often receive comments from all of the other council members regarding various issues. As no one in the Santa Clara City Council has ever commented or questioned any of the issues I have ever raised with them, save for Peterson Field, I wonder if they are as thorough as our Sunnyvale Council Members are. Thank you Mayor Spitaleri and Honorable Sunnyvale Council Members for your ongoing attention to the details, and your citizens.

Thank you to all of the cities that participated in this historic meeting. We look forward to future meetings and making cooperative progress for the betterment of all in Silicon Valley.

Thanks to everyone for caring.

Sincerely,
Tap Merrick

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Last Wednesday the Santa Clara Planning Commission met to discuss the Santa Clara Square, which is in it Final EIR acceptance stage. Well over 200 people filled City Hall to standing room-only capacity to speak out against the project — many from the City of Sunnyvale, including its Principal Planner and Vice Mayor.

In short, the project proposes two eight-story residence towers and at least two slightly shorter five- and six-story commercial retail buildings on the property currently used by Kohl’s off of Lawrence Expressway and El Camino. The project would add almost 500 housing units and incorporate 190,000 square feet of commercial and retail space on about 12 acres of land.

The complaints against the project were many:

• Adding 500 additional families would add more traffic to the local parks, libraries, streets, and services which are already saturated with people.
• The estimated 250 students (number taken from the EIR) would greatly impact the schools in the area.
• Allowing a variance for the number of parking spaces required by the project would put more cars on the streets next to the single-family homes.
• Although the developer projects adding over 1700 additional cars, the EIR states that they do not expect the traffic on Lawrence Expressway or El Camino to be affected.
• The EIR states that there is, on average, only a single car accident per year in that intersection, although people who work and live in the area claim witness to about two accidents per month.
• The EIR states that there is no correlation between increased traffic and increased accidents, which puts many of their other “facts” in doubt.
• Kohl’s — the largest business on the block, both before and after the project is completed — was not even notified of the project; the manager heard about it shortly before the Planning Commission meeting through a customer.
• At 8 stories tall, it will be the largest project along El Camino or Lawrence Expressway for miles in any direction and goes against the 4-story height restriction specified in Santa Clara guidelines.
• Although the project has been in progress for almost four years, according to the developer, they have not significantly changed the nature of the project despite community complaints and outcry.

The Planning Commission voted to allow a continuance for this project for up to 90 days to allow the developer to come back with a modified plan. You can read more reactions to this meeting at the Mercury News site:

http://www.mercurynews.com/ci_8630379?source=rss

All of the other complaints against Santa Clara Square sound eerily familiar to those of us fighting for a more reasonable proposal here at the Kaiser site. Other things to note when comparing the Fairfield Residential project with the Santa Clara Square project:

With twice the number of units, people, and cars, the Fairfield Residential project at the former Kaiser hospital property fails to add any of the commercial, retail, or community convenience proposed by Santa Clara Square, while staging the project closer to single-family homes.

One of the chief complaints against the Santa Clara Square project mentioned by residents was that, in the several years the project has been in planning, the developers had not made useful changes to any of their designs or numbers, ending up with essentially the same project they had at day one. Fairfield Residential has come back to us several times to adjust numbers, but the net change has taken them from 812 units originally to about 806 today. It’s hard to get excited about a less than 1% change. Their densities haven’t changed — we still have 540 or so High Density apartments. And their changes have nothing to do with residential concerns: Fairfield Residential has to give up those units to improve substandard access or adjust for their tandem parking garage units — which are not allowed by Santa Clara.

Initial data stated by Fairfield Residential put the number of school children anticipated at about 75. That is about a quarter of the number of children expected by the Santa Clara Square project — even though Fairfield Residential will have twice the number of families.

Although the Santa Clara Square EIR tries very hard to hide it, the effects on traffic cannot be pushed aside. At least two of the residents that spoke out that night had experience with EIRs and both slammed the report for its deficiencies. At one point, one gentleman suggested that the EIR be thrown out and done again from scratch. We are talking with those individuals and others to ensure that the data presented for the Fairfield Residential project will be above board and accurate.

The good news is that the Planning Commission seems willing to listen, especially when forced to acknowledge the hundreds of people who attended Wednesday night’s meeting. The problem appears to start with our planning department — Kevin Riley and his staff — who seem eager to comply with high-density goals against the desires of the general populace. Affordable housing is nice, but only when it comes with a community people want to be a part of. It certainly shouldn’t anger existing residents.

If we can change Santa Clara Square and make the city listen there, I have little doubt that we can make an impact with Fairfield Residential.

It’s getting exciting again.

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There has been some focus put on how many people should be notified when a project affecting their neighborhood is proposed. There is a “legal” 300-foot minimum distance from the project site, with no “maximum” notification limit. I am told that the 300-foot distance is the distance within which the state will reimburse cities for mailing notifications; beyond that distance, the city must pay for notifications itself.

First, let’s look at what 300 feet gets you.

For the Santa Clara Square site, 300 feet doesn’t even get you across most of Lawrence Expressway. It doesn’t span the supermarket parking lot — especially not after having to cross El Camino Real. 300 feet does not even cover one residential block, in any direction.

For the Fairfield Residential project, 300 feet doesn’t include a third of Woodsborough, half of Miles Drive, a quarter of Pepper Tree Lane, any of Santa Lucia, any of Homestead, or anything adjacent to Central Park. It takes 600 feet before any houses along Live Oak Drive are included, and even then no houses along Homestead are touched. Even after 1000 feet, only half of Live Oak is touched and we still haven’t gotten across the park or the schools in the area.

Now let’s look at who gets notified within that 300 feet.

Santa Clara is only legally bound to notify land owners within their chosen radius. This means that apartment complex owners — who may be thousands of miles away in a different state — will be notified, but none of the renters. Commercial and retail store owners may be notified, but they may not even live in the city.

For Santa Clara Square, that means that fewer than a dozen homes and two dozen town home complexes were notified of the 8-story tall residential high-rises and 5- and 6-story tall commercial buildings that would be put in next door. If you draw the boundary of the 300-foot areas around the Santa Clara Square site, it includes mostly street, parking lot, apartment or condominium, and commercial properties. It excludes the great majority of residential properties that lie immediately to the south and west of the property, not to mention all of the residents the project would affect along Lawrence Expressway or just off of El Camino Real. Sunnyvale residents, who live adjacent to the project, weren’t notified by Santa Clara at all, even with a request from Sunnyvale’s principal planner to do so.

Near the Fairfield Residential complex, even at 1000 feet, no residents on the other side of Central Park — or even adjacent to it — were notified. The notifications never made it beyond the two schools in the area or past the apartment and retail complexes off of Homestead. They did finally reach residents of Live Oak, but only about half of them. The area is already so saturated with rental housing that there were few houses notified beyond Live Oak or Miles Drive. In short, increasing the notification range from 300 feet to 1000 feet had no significant impact on home owners in the area. The city in its infinite wisdom stuck to the letter of their “favor” and cut the notifications off on Live Oak at exactly 1000 feet; half of the street never received the Notice of Preparation or were told about the Scoping Meeting the city set up to get public feedback. And that’s just people on Live Oak. None of the renters in the area — who would be affected just as much, if not more, by the development — were notified. This includes people in rental houses as well as those in apartment complexes.

Renters are residents just as much as home owners are residents. There is a transitory aspect to their residence, agreed. In a recent blog post, Carolyn Schuk of the Santa Clara Weekly opines “Young people buy here with the grand plan of moving to a free-standing house in a more ‘residential’ area as soon as they can.” But they deal with the same traffic, stand in the same lines, breath the same air, enjoy the same skyline, and fight for the same parking spaces as permanent residents. They suffer the same consequences, yet are excluded from sharing our same voice.

By knowingly and actively excluding renters from project notifications that affect their living standard and quality of life, the city disfranchises the very group of people it is also trying to entice by depriving them of vital information that would allow them to participate in neighborhood discussions. To become part of the neighborhood, you may say. It is argued that renters do not have as much to lose or gain as they are not home owners affected by lowered property values and have an easier option before them to leave the area and therefore do not care as much about local events. But that is not true of all renters. And notifications are not about requirements for action. They are for notification, so that people who are so inclined and so motivated can take an active role in their community to support common causes. By adding an additional 550 apartments in a high-density development, Fairfield Residential isn’t adding a single person that Santa Clara would have to notify in the event of a future project.

So. Home owners. Areas already saturated with rental units. 95-foot tall high-rise buildings.

300 feet sounds more and more like the minimum, legal requirement that it is and not so much the “favor” the people supporting the high-density projects make it out to be. Increase the radius to 1000 feet and the story doesn’t really change.

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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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