The great San Francisco Bay snail migration (with some exaggeration)

One nice aspect of our office on Bayshore Road is it's sufficiently close to the Baylands that I can get out on occasional walks. One day recently I had a burrito lunch walk, ending up on a wooden platform extending a little ways over the water at high tide. Everywhere under the shallow surface were snails, slowly moving about.

Seeing snails was nothing new, but this time I stayed in one place long enough to see something different. The seemingly-random, slow snail movement was actually converging on a submerged tidal channel, where a higher concentration of snails were already moving downstream - thousands of snails as far as I could see, in some kind of migration.

I don't really know what was going on. It was shortly after high tide, so the snails may have just been moving to keep below water level. Or maybe it was a real seasonal migration of some type. Still, I felt lucky to have this mini-revelation of a natural process going on in a place I had been to dozens of times before.

Another reason to keep in mind the value of easily-visited, local open space, giving us a chance for revelations that we don't see in our first visit.

-Brian

Cover email sent regarding Stanford Sustainable Development Study

(An earlier post summarizes information showing the Stanford Sustainable Development Study was meant to cover the foreseeable future for at least 99 years. Below is an email we sent to the Palo Alto City Council along with the summary info. -Brian)

Dear Palo Alto City Council Members,

Sometime early next year, you will have the chance to comment on the draft Stanford Sustainable Development Study, which must be approved by Santa Clara County before Stanford can apply for the second million square feet of development. The draft submitted by Stanford violates the Stanford Community Plan because it describes planning for buildout only ten years past the existing, 25-year restriction on expansion beyond the Academic Growth Boundary. The Community Plan calls for a description of the "maximum planned buildout potential" that has always been understood to apply to the foreseeable future far beyond the additional ten years proposed by Stanford. The City of Palo Alto made this its own official policy in 1999, and we ask you to strongly reaffirm this position when the issue comes before the City Council.

To understand the planning horizon contemplated in December 2000 for the Stanford Sustainable Development Study, the Committee for Green Foothills has done a preliminary review of documents that formed the origin of the Stanford GUP requirement for the Study. The first attachment is our summary and is reprinted at the bottom of this email; the subsequent four documents contain one or more additional sources.

All the relevant sources that we found support the idea that the planning horizon for the Study is either permanent or at least for 99 years, which we equate with planning for the foreseeable future. We found no support in the record for the Stanford's contention that the Study was meant to have a planning horizon that extended only 10 years past the 25-year limit protecting the Academic Growth Boundary.

We would be happy to answer any questions.

Sincerely,
Brian Schmidt

Brian Schmidt
Legislative Advocate, Committee for Green Foothills

Stanford Study meant to be permanent or at least 99 years

(The following document on the Stanford Sustainable Development Study was sent to multiple government officials today. -Brian)

Excerpts of statements in the administrative record for the December 2000 Stanford GUP that are related to the planning horizon for the Stanford Sustainable Development Study

City of Palo Alto recommendations of 10/12/99, reaffirmed 10/25/99 and 10/28/99:

Vision for Long-Term Build-out of Stanford University

· The Community Plan should include a long-term vision, beyond the 10-year scope of the Plan, for the ultimate build-out of the University. While it is recognized that this vision would not be as detailed as the ten-year Plan regarding Stanford's potential development, it would be helpful I providing insight into the University's future evolution.

Note: the call for "vision" for "ultimate build-out" was expressly reaffirmed in the later City documents. The ten-year reference for the current Plan was based on an expected fast buildout under the Stanford GUP. "Ultimate build-out" excludes Stanford's suggestion that Study only covers 10 years more than the Academic Growth Boundary protection to the year 2025.

City of Menlo Park recommendations of 10/21/99, reaffirmed by the City on 1/5/00:

The Community Plan should have both a total and permanent limitation, or cap, on building square footage and population with the understanding that it does not give Stanford the right to extend the limits beyond the cap.

Note: Menlo Park felt the permanent cap should be both mandatory and part of the Stanford GUP, so interpreting the Study to only add ten years of planning would not support the City's comments.

Written statement by Supervisor Joe Simitian of 10/24/00:

During the past 18 months some members of the public have proposed that we use this GUP and Community Plan process to establish a "cap" on the University's maximum development potential, "buildout" as it's often referred to....I am not inclined to propose that our Board establish a permanent cap or attempt to define at this point the ultimate buildout of the campus.

I am inclined to think, however that it would be irresponsible to simply ignore the need for a clearer notion about the ultimate capacity of Stanford lands and a clearer vision of what such a plan might entail. For that reason I'm inclined to suggest to my colleagues that the Conditions of Approval for the GUP include a condition requiring that Stanford undertake a Buildout Study regarding the buildout potential of Stanford University on all unincorporated lands within Santa Clara County.

Note: Here the then-Supervisor Simitian made synonymous the terms "cap," "maximum development potential," "ultimate capacity of Stanford lands," and "Buildout Study". The Buildout Study was later renamed the Sustainable Development Study.

Statements by Supervisors Simitian and Beall at the Stanford GUP hearing of 11/27/00:

Sup. Simitian:….I had proposed one tool, the use of Clustering Credits which to understate the case dramatically was not well-received by the University…. The question then is how do we deal with this issue of finding a real plan to prevent sprawl that is acceptable and manageable for all the parties involved, and what I would suggest is that…prior to the second million square feet of academic facilities being constructed and permits being issued, that the University be obliged to prepare a Sustainable Development Plan which would address these issues to the satisfaction of the Board….[I]t would in effect say okay, apparently Supervisor Simitian's suggestion for dealing with the issue of sprawl was something the University found unacceptable but now we'll give it to the University and give them the chance to say here's how they'd like to address the issues of sprawl….

Sup. Simitian:….Why don't we just indicate for the record that those five items [including Sustainable Develoment Study] are in lieu of the Clustering Credit language which was submitted originally in the Community Plan….

Sup. Beall: I think the general idea of clustering is something we're not abandoning….

Sup. Simitian: Right, I, whether or not clustering or rather clustering credits live to see another day is an open question, and it's certainly something that can be looked at in the Sustainable Development Study that Supervisor Beall and I have both referenced….

(Emphasis added.)

Note: Clustering credits had been proposed by environmental groups to give Stanford the ability to develop a certain amount in the core campus in return for permanent Foothills protection, while Supervisor Simitian proposed them for 99-year protection. There would be no point in considering them in the Study if the Study's planning horizon is only 10 years longer than the Academic Growth Boundary Protection that was being proposed at the time.

The Committee for Green Foothills has all the relevant documents and transcripts. We found nothing in any of the documents we studied to support the idea that the Study was meant to have a planning horizon short of permanent or 99-year time frame, which we would consider comparable to planning for the foreseeable future. Stanford's attempt to reduce the scope of the Study can only be done, if at all, through a General Use Permit amendment, and not through non-compliance.

Please contact Brian Schmidt (650) 968-7243 with any questions.

Timeline for Stanford Sustainable Development Study

CGF Intern Laurel Smith and I have been researching how the Stanford Sustainable Development Study became a requirement in the 2000 General Use Permit, which will hopefully help shed light on the question of whether the "maximum buildout potential" meant "maximum buildout potential" or if it meant "maximum buildout up until some relatively short period in the future, and then all bets are off."

First thing we've found so far is a statement by then-Supervisor Joe Simitian on 10/24/08 on County letterhead:

During the past 18 months some members of the public have proposed that we use this GUP and Community Plan process to establish a "cap" on the University's maximum development potential, "buildout" as it's often referred to....I am not inclined to to propose that our Board establish a permanent cap or attempt to define at this point the ultimate buildout of the campus.

I am inclined to think, however that it would be irresponsible to simply ignore the need for a clearer notion about the ultimate capacity of of Stanford lands and a clearer vision of what such a plan might entail. For that reason I'm inclined to suggest to my colleagues that the Conditions of Approval for the GUP include a condition requiring that Stanford undertake a Buildout Study regarding the buildout potential of Stanford University on all unincorporated lands within Santa Clara County.

So from the beginning, "cap" = "maximum development potential" = "ultimate capacity of Stanford lands" = "Buildout Study". The Buildout Study was later renamed the Sustainable Development Study.

The next thing we found in November 2000 was tying the Buildout Study to the Compact Urban Growth standard that would've limited growth beyond the Academic Growth Boundary for 99 years. That time period limitation later shrank to 25 years.

Still later, November 22, 2000, then-Supervisor Beall proposed the new name, "Sustainable Development Study" that broadened the scope of the Study somewhat. While somewhat unclear from the document I've got, he may also have inserted the Community Plan language "it would be infeasible to accommodate an additional 200,000 square feet annually in perpetuity, in is unclear how much additional development is appropriate." This is a statement about the foreseeable future with no end date. The Study is supposed to address the question of "how much additional development is appropriate" without an end date.

The final change follows a letter from just-elected-to-the-Assembly Joe Simitian, requesting the term "maximum buildout potential for all fo Stanford's unincorporated land" be placed in the Stanford Community Plan, explaining that the concept was part of the conditions for the General Use Permit. The term went in.

Nothing suggests the idea ever restricted the vision from the original idea of determining the ulitmate capacity of the land for the forseeable future.

-Brian

CGF comment letter on Stanford Sustainable Development Study

(CGF submitted this letter last week regarding the Stanford Sustainable Development Study. -Brian)

November 20, 2008

Santa Clara County Planning Commission

Re: Comments on the Sustainable Development Study for Stanford University

Dear Commission Members;

The Committee for Green Foothills (CGF) appreciates the opportunity to comment on the Stanford Sustainable Development Study (Study). While the process used to reach this point has had significant flaws due to the secrecy in its preparation and the failure to involve the broader community from beginning principles, the draft represents a good first effort in covering part of what was supposed to be done with the Study. In particular, Stanford's own acknowledgment that millions of square feet of additional development could occur within the Academic Growth Boundary without expansion into the foothills is a step toward sustainable buildout that preserves open space. The discussion in Chapter 5 of a wider array of environmental strategies also adds to its value.

The fundamental flaw with the Study, however, is the artificial planning horizon of 2035, a restriction that violates the Community Plan and destroys the Study's usefulness. This flaw must be corrected, probably through action by the County. The Stanford Community Plan (SCP) states the Study must "identify the maximum planned buildout potential" and all areas of potential development. SCP-GD 12. The Study seems deliberately written to avoid quoting this language, often quoting or paraphrasing language before and after the term "maximum buildout potential" while failing to use the term anywhere other than a text box on page 18. The term should be the subtitle on the document's front cover.

No time constraint or planning horizon was included in the Community Plan or in the discussion of the Community Plan and General Use Permit. Because the environmental community had advocated permanent protection of lands beyond the Academic Growth Boundary, the Study requirement made sense as a compromise imposed by the Supervisors and accepted by Stanford – the foothills would not be permanently protected, but a non-binding study showing what areas are likely to remain undeveloped would be delineated. This attempt to not even make a non-binding acknowledgment of those areas fits into an unfortunate pattern of commitments by Stanford for permission for millions of square feet of development, followed by a ridiculously cramped interpretation of those agreements.

The fact that the Study does not look beyond 2035 even reduces its value for the next 25 years. We have no doubt that an adequate Sustainability Study would emphasize that Stanford will need open space indefinitely, that the need will increase as development increases on the core campus, that impacts on surrounding communities from Stanford's growth further justifies open space protection, and that concentrating development on the core campus is more sustainable than spreading it over undeveloped open space. Given that an adequate study would assume no development in the foothills, only by assessing the total level of development that is likely to occur in the core campus could the study also assess how the proposed development in the next 25 years fits into that context. If the development discussed in the draft Study uses almost all the square footage that could be sustainably built in the core campus, then it is likely not sustainable because it leaves little room for later growth. In other words, the draft Study fails to measure full buildout as required past 2035, and also fails to adequately measure sustainability before 2035.

An additional flaw in the Study is a failure to define the parameters of sustainable development in order to determine whether the discussed buildout is sustainable. The section titled "Sustainability Defined" on page 94 fails to include a definition of sustainability. This is unsurprising in a way, because any reasonable definition would not say that sustainable development can ignore any consequence occurring after 2035.

A better draft Study should have a definition of sustainable development; application of the definition to developing parameters for Stanford; a constraints analysis that includes value of open space, resource limits, and relationship of development to surrounding communities; and a scenario range that would weigh potential buildout levels to the sustainability parameters. The task of the County should be to transform the current draft into what the Study should be.

There are many specific comments that CGF has on an adequate Study, but these comments focus on the broader principles of content and process that need to change as we move forward. Fortunately, there is plenty of time. There appears to be no likelihood that Stanford would apply for development beyond the one-million feet ceiling anytime in 2009, with Stanford publicly signaling that it will pull back on new capital projects. In addition, CGF and Supervisor Kniss have called for work to begin on the Study over seven years ago, so any remote chance of delay to Stanford construction projects come down to Stanford's choice of timing to work on the Study.

On process, there should be a series of on-campus and off-campus workshops to develop criteria for the second draft of the Study. These workshops should be led by a County-chosen consultant at Stanford's expense, a provision that Stanford has agreed to. See SCP-GD (i) 3. The organizations mentioned in Study Chapter 5 should be engaged publicly and to the full extent those organizations wish, as opposed to quiet discussions with selected individuals. Elected student, faculty, and alumni association governments should be consulted. The second draft should then be constructed by the County's consultant, with the assistance of Stanford. A projected deadline of summer 2009 for the second draft and fall 2009 for the final version would be appropriate

Specific commentary on content could also be submitted as the workshops and second draft are developed. This first draft is an excellent start. CGF will be happy to submit comments during that process, and can also submit specific comments on improvements for the current draft that could be used in the second draft.

We look forward to participating in a process that protects the local environment and fulfills Stanford's obligation to the community that Stanford agreed to in the Stanford Community Plan.

Please contact us if you have any questions.

Congestion pricing for San Francisco? San Jose?

San Francisco is considering a congestion charge for traffic entering San Francisco during certain hours, similar to what London has done for a number of years. (Noone's talking about San Jose, yet.)

The effects on our work of protecting open space from sprawl would likely be mixed. On the positive side, the charge would increase incentives to live in the city or near to public transit, which would reduce sprawl. On the other hand, one of our major problems with sprawl is from monster mansion developers, who could probably care less about the charge's cost but appreciate the reduced traffic.

Overall, I suspect the pros outweigh the cons for open space, and strongly outweigh the cons on climate change issues. We haven't looked at the issue closely though, but may need to in the near future.

-Brian

Draft Stanford Sustainable Development Study available, and there are problems

Stanford's long-promised, draft Sustainable Development Study is available here. While I haven't had the time to take a good look at it, there's an immediately-obvious flaw - it's supposed to "identify the maximum buildout potential and all areas of potential development" but fails to do that, instead describing what buildout is expected only through 2035.

This issue alone is going to take a lot of work to get right. We'll have to take a close look at the rest.

-Brian

CGF Summer 2008 Newsletter Article about San Martin

(A version of this post appeared in the Summer 2008 Green Footnotes. -Brian)

Proposed San Martin Incorporation: a reasonable purpose, wrong approach, and terrible execution

Heading south from San Jose, Monterey Highway and Santa Theresa Boulevard lets people see much of Santa Clara County that's not visible from Highway 101. The open fields, fruit stands, and greenhouses of Coyote Valley transform abruptly into the residential development of Morgan Hill. Leaving that city of fifty thousand people, a gradual transition back to farmland eventually arrives at the eighty thousand people of Gilroy, and then further south to still more farmland all the way to the county line at the Pajaro River, north of Hollister.

There's one exception though to the farmland between Morgan Hill and Gilroy. Half way in between is San Martin Avenue, the heart of the unincorporated town of San Martin with about five thousand people living there. Committee for Green Foothills has worked to protect this area, most recently fighting the expansion of San Martin Airport that is not meant to serve the local area but just to provide more corporate jet capacity for northern Santa Clara County.

The central part of San Martin can properly be called a town, with relatively dense development, stores, and even a Caltrain station. With a community identity and history of opposition to bad county planning in past years, some San Martin residents have proposed incorporating their town so they can take over land use planning. This purpose is reasonable although one could equally reasonably oppose it, since they propose none of the city services that usually accompany incorporation.

The real problem lies with the approach then taken by incorporation proponents, that every acre lying between the Morgan Hill, Gilroy, and their respective planning areas (called Spheres of Influence) should become part of San Martin. This turns normal city planning on its head – normally, cities are supposed to encompass the areas that are mostly developed, and only expand outward to bring in rural lands when the city's future growth requires the land. While at least some San Martin incorporation proponents expect to do a better job of protecting open space than the County has, they cannot control the future city, and a real risk of wholesale loss of thousands of acres of farmland could happen with any vote of the future city council.

Then where things have gone terribly wrong is with the execution of the process for determining whether San Martin will incorporate. This problem has nothing to with San Martin residents but everything to do with the agency that is supposed to oversee the process, Santa Clara County Local Agency Formation Commission (LAFCO). This agency is required by County policy and state law to protect the environment but has refused advice of its staff, its lawyer, a second team of lawyers, and and an environmental consultant. The advice revolved around shrinking the size of the proposed city, but on a series of consistent 3-2 votes, the LAFCO Commission has refused to do it job.

The situation became so serious that for the first time in Committee for Green Foothills' 46-year history, our Board of Directors passed a No Confidence Motion in Santa Clara County LAFCO. We can only hope the agencies responsible for appointments to LAFCO take notice of this situation, and take appropriate action to fix it.

Build It Green information

I had blogged earlier about Santa Clara County's intent to require "green building" principles for new residences.

Attached are some of those principles for future reference. Looks pretty good!

-Brian

General Plan updates in Santa Clara County

A useful list I received about the schedules for General Plan updates in Santa Clara County - something good to keep in mind.

-Brian

General Plan Updates – Santa Clara County Cities

listed by City, Next Scheduled Update, and Plan Elements To Be Updated
Campbell 2008 Housing (Other elements not scheduled)
Cupertino ? None scheduled. (Comprehensive update in 2005)
Gilroy 2015-17 Comprehensive
Los Altos 2008 Housing (Comprehensive not scheduled)
Los Altos Hills 2008 (at council now) Land Use
Los Gatos 2010 (just underway) Comprehensive
Milpitas 2009 Housing (Comprehensive not scheduled)
Monte Sereno 2008 (at council now) Comprehensive
Morgan Hill 2011 (approx) Comprehensive
Mountain View 2009-10
just underway Comprehensive
Palo Alto 2010 just underway Housing, add Sustainability, update all other elements
San Jose 2008 Comprehensive
Santa Clara 2009 Comprehensive
Saratoga 2008 Housing (Comprehensive not scheduled)
Sunnyvale 2008
Parks & Recreation (2008), Land Use & Transportation (2009), Housing (2009-10),
Santa Clara County ? Comprehensive not scheduled
Stanford University ? Comprehensive not scheduled

A PowerPoint presentation on why Parks Charter Funding shouldn't be used for road mitigation

We've written repeatedly on why using Parks Funding as credit against impacts from road impacts in the Habitat Conservation Plan is a bad idea. Below the fold is a PowerPoint explanation of the problem.

-Brian

Some very good news to update

First, we had a wonderful Nature's Inspiration event on Sunday, celebrating Lennie Roberts' 30 years of service. Lots of people, beautiful setting, very nice things that were said - it couldn't be better.

More at the link....


In addition, last week the Santa Clara County Supervisors told County staff to begin a residential Green Building ordinance that will promote water conservation, native plants, energy savings, a lot of other approaches that fall in line with CGF's mandate of protecting open space and natural resources. The Supervisors supported CGF's position of requiring increasing amounts of "Build It Green" requirements for larger residences starting at 3,000 square feet, an incentive for reducing the number of monster mansions blighting our hillsides. We'll be closely watching the ultimate zoning ordinance.

Onward!

-Brian

Opposing the Bush Administration attempt to weaken the Endangered Species Act

We sent out an Urgent Alert to supporters over the weekend, asking them to contact the Bush Administration and announce their opposition to proposed rules that would weaken the Endangered Species Act. We contacted the Interior Department as well, and wrote the following.

The Committee for Green Foothills represents over a thousand families in Santa Clara and San Mateo Counties in its mission of protecting open space and natural resources in those counties. We at the Committee oppose the proposed revisions to Section 7 consultations. These revisions will reduce the use of valuable expertise and bias evaluation of endangered species impacts against their actual import, as the action agencies will be inclined to downplay environmental impacts. For the above reasons, we oppose the proposed rule revisions.

Below is a copy of the Urgent Alert:

The endangered species of the Bay Area and of the rest of the country need your help. In its last months in office, the Bush Administration proposes to dramatically weaken the Endangered Species Act by letting federal agencies considering actions that harm species avoid consultation and oversight from with expert wildlife agencies. This reverses 30 years of federal regulation designed to restrain federal agencies whose mission and political culture is focused on other things besides protecting species. Please use the website below to submit a comment opposing the proposed changes. Comments must be submitted by Monday, September 15, to be considered.

What's Happening

The Interior Department has proposed the change to limit "Section 7" consultations between federal agencies considering an action ("action agencies") and the expert wildlife agencies (the Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Marine Fisheries Service).

Why This is Important

Contrary to Administration claims, the action agencies do not have the same level of expertise about effects on endangered species as the wildlife agencies. In addition, the action agencies inevitably prioritize achieving their main missions over endangered species so they will often interpret evidence in such a way as to reduce its significance. Locking out the agencies with the most expertise and the most interest in protecting species will mean more species will fall through the cracks.

What You Can Do

In another change to previous policy, the Interior Department refuses to accept emailed comments on its proposed rule, but it will accept comments submitted on a government website. Tell them you oppose the proposed new rule and that the Endangered Species Act should be strengthened, not weakened.

To submit the comments, click on this link:

http://www.regulations.gov/fdmspublic/component/main?main=SubmitComment&o=09000064806c5826

You will need to fill out the submitter information at the top of the web page, and then at the bottom of the page you can inform them of your comment opposing the proposed rule.

For more information, see the Sierra Club's Take Action webpage:

http://action.sierraclub.org/site/PageServer?pagename=ProtecttheEndangeredSpeciesAct

Thanks for speaking up for our coastal wetlands and environmental protections! Your voice does make a difference!

- The folks at Committee for Green Foothills

Earth to Google: Reduce, Reuse, Redeploy

(The following is a guest blog post written by CGF Intern Laurel Smith. We hope to follow up on these issues in the coming months. -Brian)


For the past 14 years NASA has controlled Moffett Field and kept it within federal jurisdiction, thus subjecting all new development to the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). NASA requires 7 million dollars each year to maintain the site, and rents space to agenda-fitting private businesses to carry the cash inflow. One such qualified business is Google, who is willing and able to dish out $3.7 million a year for a plot of Moffett land. Google and NASA began their relationship three years ago when the NASA Research Park was establishing new partnerships; today the two superpowers have a very strong bond as they collaborate on revolutionary projects such as Google Earth.


In June, NASA got Google’s signature on a 40-year lease that has the option of being extended up to 90 years. See NASA’s press release here. The lease grants 42.2 acres of “underdeveloped” land to the company, which will be used to build 1.2 million square feet of office space. Google already has 2 million square feet of office space in the area, and constitutes the biggest employer in Mountain View. The project will bring 4,000 new people to the city, and with that comes employee housing, fitness facilities, dining rooms, conference halls, childcare centers, and the potential for a bridge over Stevens Creek.


The project has been undertaken by William McDonough + Partners, an architecture firm known for their environmental sustainability. Construction will include 13 buildings, and will take place in 3 phases, starting in 2013, and following with stages in 2018 and 2022. All construction and permits will be overseen by NASA, who is acting as a city would if the project were taking place within municipal boundaries. NASA will be responsible for approving the design, and completing regular inspections of the project. Google will also be building parking garages, and outdoor recreation facilities and parks for all of NASA’s inhabitants to use. Further, the project will require basic amenities such as roads and a sewage system, which on their own take a heavy toll on the land and existing environment.


Primary concerns regarding this project are issues of environmental welfare, housing, transportation, and taxation. (See a great article from San Francisco Gate here.) Northern Santa Clara County currently has more jobs than available housing, and this imbalance can only tip further with the new Google campus. With 4,000 new employees in the area, speculation arises as to where everyone will live, what the new population will contribute to traffic, and what role the new roads and sewage systems will have on the fragile ecosystem. Google will be constructing and running the whole operation in what they claim to be a cutting-edge, environmentally sound way, but this may not be the most earth friendly option.


What Google seems to have overlooked is that there are millions of square feet of unoccupied and available office space within miles of the planned construction site. Just minutes past the Moffett exit along highway 237, one can’t help but notice the abundance of vacant office buildings decorated with “For Lease” and “For Sale” signs. These empty structures could easily be modified to suit the needs of Google, but instead the company has chosen to create anew. The company could spare itself the millions of dollars in Moffett rent, development costs, and mitigation efforts by purchasing the already existing space where roads, plumbing, and basic infrastructure are already in place. Such locations could then be maintained in the greenest way possible, and could be used to preserve Google’s progressive image. We might not be in a position to stop Google from pursuing the establishment of this new campus, but we can certainly put pressure on the company. Hopefully this will lead Google to mitigate more than is required by NEPA, and to thoughtfully consider a fuller realm of options in its future endeavors.

Winning the Los Gatos lawsuit!

Just a quick note - we learned today that Judge Nichols ruled in our favor on a lawsuit over Los Gatos' decision approving a development that harms Los Gatos Creek. Great news!

We'll have more about it tomorrow.

-Brian

Yet another problem with the Parks Charter Fund/Habitat Plan issue

Yesterday someone pointed out to me a problem with counting parkland purchases as mitigation for road impacts that I hadn't thought of before: the Habitat Plan treats the amount of road impacts as a fixed quantity (somewhat simplified but accurate enough for these purposes), when in fact it could be higher or lower. If the County Roads Department uses parkland to count as mitigation for road impacts rather than paying for it from the Roads budget, it has just lost any incentive it has to minimize the impacts. In other words, we'll get far more impacts than would otherwise be the case. True, those impacts will be mitigated, but that's inadequate for two reasons: first, mitigation isn't as good as avoiding impacts, and second, the mitigation has the effect of eliminating a net benefit of more endangered habitat.

Let's walk through two cost scenarios as an example, where the County Roads Department has to choose between widening a road into endangered habitat riparian zone on one side, or encroaching into a hillside on the other:

Scenario 1: Costs of widening a road into riparian zone:
Construction and non-habitat costs: $1.0 million
Habitat mitigation cost: $0.5 million
Total: $1.5 million

Scenario 2: Costs of widening a road into a hillside:
Construction and non-habitat costs: $1.1 million
Habitat mitigation cost: none
Total: $1.1 million

The rational choice if the Roads Department considered (meaning, "had to pay for") all costs would be Scenario 2. But if the Roads Department just gets free credit for land purchased by the Parks Department, then Scenario 2 looks more expensive to it, and it will choose Scenario 1 instead. I was fumbling toward this idea when I repeatedly told the County that it's bad policy to shift costs between departments, but this points it out really well.

So what's the likely County response? If I were them, I'd point to toothless and unenforceable provisions in the Habitat Plan that say "where economically feasible, impacts should be avoided" and claim that meant something. I expect they believe that to be true in the abstract, but when it gets down to the specifics of each budget, the real choice will always default to Scenario 1.

(More reasons here for why using Parks Charter Fund is a bad idea.)
-Brian

Why Santa Clara County shouldn't reduce the benefits of the Parks Charter Fund

(Below is a display we used in a so-far-unsuccessful effort to get the County Roads Department to keep its hands off of the Parks Charter fund. -Brian)

Reasons why the Roads Fund, not the Parks Charter Fund, should pay for roads impacts

1. Parks Fund meant to be a net benefit, but used as a mitigation means the environment is no better off

2. Better management principle is to reduce cross-subsidies, in this case using Parks funding to subsidize road development.

3. Using Parks funding may interfere with the future selection of parkland in order to maximize mitigation of roads impacts.

Alternative:

Parks Dept. pays for park impacts

Roads Dept. pays for road impacts

Parks can purchase recreational use on lands bought by Roads Dept.

Bad decision by Santa Clara County Supervisors on Parks

We told them not to convert the Parks Charter Fund from an environmental benefit to a kind of mitigation bank that pays for environmental impacts from road widening. Unfortunately we haven't been able to persuade them so far.

Below is a recent letter on this issue in the Mercury News:

Parks Charter Fund not meant for roads

On Tuesday, the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors decided to pilfer $14 million from the Santa Clara County Parks Charter funds to pay for non-park-related expenses. This is a dangerous precedent and goes against the will of the voters. The Parks Charter Fund was passed specifically by the voters, since 1972, to set aside funds to buy and maintain county parks and nothing else. But the supervisors (Pete McHugh, Don Gage and Ken Yeager - for; Blanca Alvarado and Liz Kniss - against) decided to use those funds to pay for obligations incurred by the county roads department to meet their mitigation obligation under the proposed county habitat plan. This is irresponsible, and the decision should be rescinded immediately.

Craige Edgerton
Member, Stakeholders Group Santa Clara Valley Habitat Conservation Plan/Natural Community Conservation Plan

When is a math error a real error?

Yesterday I went to a Planning Commission hearing to oppose a project for 26,000 square foot covered horse arena and barn on a 14 acre property that also has 6,000 square feet of residential development on it. This seemed to me to be a terrible precedent for massive development that would be used to push permits for monster mansions.

That was the main point I brought up, although it was rejected by County staff and the commission, both swearing up and down that it's not a precedent for other development. Hopefully they'll remember that when the time comes.

The other point though was about the environmental document from 2007 that they were using. It said the total development including the residence was 26,000 feet, not the 32,000 feet now being considered. I argued they couldn't use the document if the project had been expanded.

After some confusion among staff, they said that the project hadn't been changed, it always had been 32,000 square feet, and it was just the calculation of footage in the document that was wrong. Personally, I'm not all that happy with sloppiness or consider it meaningless, especially when it's a 25% underestimate. Too bad the Planning Commission didn't care.

This happens all the time. We'll just have to keep fighting.

-Brian

Great article about Stanford blocking the Bay-to-Ridge Trail

Palo Alto Weekly has a great article here about how a trail from Skyline to the Bay is all but constructed. The only missing part runs through Stanford. That part should have been constructed years ago - Stanford agreed to do it, but has since backed out. We'll keep working on them though.

-Brian

(An excellent map too is here.)

Judicial activism against the environment

A blow is struck by judicial activism on behalf of a misguided minority of landowners in a recent California Supreme Court decision overriding the majority of voters in a Santa Clara County Open Space Authority election (decision here). Worse still, this decision will make future funding of open space purchases by any California government agency more difficult, although not impossible. We at CGF participated in a "Friend of the Court" brief on behalf of the Open Space Authority, and are sorry things didn't go the right way.

The background is that California law since Proposition 13 has allowed a simple majority of voters to decrease tax rates but requires a two-thirds supermajority to increase "special taxes" (taxes not just meant for general public benefit purposes). A "special assessment," however, is different from a "special tax" in that it provides a special benefit to specific properties, and doesn't require a two-thirds vote. The entire legal battle is over what constitutes a "special assessment."

Proposition 218, passed in 1996, tightened the legal requirements for special assessments in ways that remained poorly defined (probably to keep voters from anticipating specific problems and voting against the measure). As the Supreme Court notes, Prop. 218 created a paradox whereby a "special district" must constitute all the parcels that receive a special benefit from the assessment, but it also says that if the benefit reaches every parcel in the district then it isn't a "special benefit" but rather a general benefit that needs a supermajority to pass.

The Supreme Court dealt with this paradox by saying that if parcels receive "direct advantages" from the benefit, like proximity to a park, then it's a special benefit even if conferred on all parcels in the district. So far, so good. But then the Court spends the remainder of the opinion ignoring what it just said. The Open Space Authority had justified the assessment by describing the direct advantages all parcels in the district will receive, such as better views and improved access to public recreation. The Court ignores this and says because these benefits reach everyone, they aren't special benefits and fall under Prop. 218 proscriptions.

So why would the Supreme Court behave so strangely? The likely reason is that Prop. 218 was itself a voter reaction to a previous Supreme Court ruling that allowed expansive uses of special districts. The Court is aware that initiative propositions are the only mechanisms that voters have to overrule it, so the Court felt obligated to overreact to the Open Space Authority's special assessment, something that resembled a standard property assessment.

Short of changing Propositions 218 or 13, this decision is the last word on this issue, and an assessment like the Open Space Authority's will require a two-thirds supermajority. However, somewhat different special assessments may still be possible. An assessment that set up a priority acquisition area and assessed more in the immediate vicinity of that area than far away from there, or assessed more when an acquisition is first made, might still be legal. This is something that will have to be tested in the future.

-Brian

Online tool for Letters to the Editor email addresses

I came across this the other day: an online tool for finding email addresses for sending letters to the editor, based on physical location. When a land use issue affects a particular place, this can help to figure out which newspaper may be interested in it.

I tried it out for Mountain View, where I live. It didn't get all the papers, but it did get some, so it's useful.

-Brian

Audubon Society agrees with CGF criticism of LAFCO

We at CGF have noted that the failure of Santa Clara County LAFCO has reached a level so that we have "No confidence" in the organization. We're not alone.

The Santa Clara Valley Audubon Society passed the following resolution:

"To direct staff to draft correspondence to San Jose's City Council, Mayor Chuck Reed, the County's Board of Supes, and the City of Mountain View (These are the bodies that have appointed the LAFCO commissioners). Correspondence to cover that we've reviewed the recent action by the Committee for Green Foothills (CGF), and the recent decisions by the LAFCO commission and that we are similarly deeply concerned that the commission's mission to control urban sprawl and protect open space is being seriously undermined and that those who have appointed the commissioners should consider what actions they can take to ensure the Commission performs its mission in the best interests of the the citizens of Santa Clara Co. (or words to that effect)."

We hope that LAFCO and the appointing agencies start to pay attention.

-Brian

A great time on the Santa Clara County Farm Tour

Just reporting in that CGF's Farm Tour went really well on Saturday. Around 40 people attended, we went to four locations (an orchard with cherry tastings, an organic vegetable farm, a cattle ranch, and winery), had lots of great food, and heard the farmers' concerns. Jan Garrod, president of the Santa Clara County Farm Bureau, gave a very nice speech on how the farmers' best allies are the environmentalists. There was one spill on the bus that turned out to be very minor, so everything worked out fine.

We'll do an in-depth report later, but just wanted to get the word out. These events have been a lot of fun as well as extremely educational.

-Brian

CGF joins the California Rangeland Conservation Coalition

We've just sent in our commitment to be part of the California Rangeland Conservation Coalition, an entity that recognizes the importance of private rangeland for the environment and helps bring ranchers and environmentalists together.

Very happy to join!

-Brian

NEWS RELEASE: Environmentalists call for fewer new monster mansions on hillsides following the Santa Cruz Mountains fire

(CGF sent out the following news release yesterday. -Brian)


FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: May 26, 2008


PRESS CONTACTS:
Brian Schmidt, Legislative Advocate
phone (650) 968-7243,

Environmentalists call for fewer new monster mansions on hillsides following the Santa Cruz Mountains fire


Committee for Green Foothills called today for the Santa Clara County to reconsider environmental reforms that would reduce the number of new hillside "monster mansions" in the wake of the ongoing, 4,000 acre Summit Fire in the Santa Cruz Mountains. "Taxpayer money and firefighters' lives should not be risked for more and more inappropriate, 'monster mansions' on the hillsides," said CGF Advocate Brian Schmidt. "Two years ago, the Committee for Green Foothills and other environmental groups sponsored the Measure A environmental initiative in Santa Clara County in 2006 that would have reduced new development in hillside areas, specifically including the area in the County that is now on fire. Our initiative failed by less than one-half of one percent, due to a half-million dollars spent by outside Realtors' groups from Southern California and from their national headquarters in Chicago. We now call on Santa Clara County to undertake new measures to limit inappropriate new development."

Committee for Green Foothills argues that more development in the hills increases the chance of someone doing something that starts a fire, while also making firefighting more dangerous and expensive as firefighters seek to rescue people and protect property. Schmidt said, "We're not trying to take away existing homes or even ending all new construction in the hills, but we need to stop adding to sprawl by putting more and more buildings in these fire-prone areas, especially large mansions that are difficult to protect and harder to rescue people from."

Last year, Santa Clara County Supervisors supported a motion by Supervisor Ken Yeager to draft a new ordinance toughening enforcement of fire regulations. "While the County has made a good first step, a lot more must be done," Schmidt said. "The County now lets land developers to deviate from the standard minimum parcel size in areas designated as 'Hillsides' and put up to eight times more development through a 'cluster subdivision'
process. This cluster subdivision option should be eliminated in areas with significantly elevated fire risk."

Other possibilities include enactment of certain portions of the Measure A initiative during upcoming revisions for the County's General Plan.
Residential building size limits to avoid "monster mansions" have also been supported by environmentalists, and giant structures favored by developers create more fire risks and are more difficult to defend.

# # #
About the Committee for Green Foothills
Committee for Green Foothills is a regional grassroots organization working to establish and maintain land-use policies that protect the environment throughout San Mateo and Santa Clara Counties. Committee for Green Foothills, established in 1962, is a Bay Area leader in the continuing effort to protect open space and the natural environment of our Peninsula.
For more information about the Committee for Green Foothills or about our work on this issue, visit www.GreenFoothills.org.

CGF comment on the Santa Cruz Mountains fire

(KQED had a radio program this morning about the Santa Cruz Mountains fires. We emailed in the following short comment - it didn't get into the show, but I thought we should share it. -Brian)


I work for Committee for Green Foothills, an organization that along with others sponsored the Measure A environmental initiative in Santa Clara County in 2006 that would have reduced new development in hillside areas, specifically including the area in the County that is now on fire. Our initiative failed by less than one-half of one percent, due to a half-million dollars spent by outside Realtors' groups from Southern California and from their national chapter.

We are continuing to work on measures to reduce sprawl, and these measures will decrease the chance of human-caused fires and the risk the fires will create. We hope that public support will make these efforts successful, and we welcome public input.

Sincerely,
Brian Schmidt

Brian Schmidt
Legislative Advocate, Committee for Green Foothills

Vacancy on the Santa Clara County Parks Commission

There's a vacancy on the Santa Clara County Parks and Recreation Commission, which would be a great place for a good environmentalist to get involved with local government. The announcement's here: http://www.sccgov.org/SCC/docs/SCC%20Public%20Portal/keyboard%20agenda/BOS%20Agenda/2008/May%2020,%202008/KeyboardTransmittal-0011957.PDF

Shortened version of URL here:
http://tiny.cc/KQQOE

While it says the vacant term ends next month, I think that's either a mistake or that a new four-year term starts afterward. The appointment is allocated to Supervisorial District 3 (McHugh), but I'm not sure if the applicant has to be from that district, as opposed to just being appointed by that Supervisor.
-Brian

Problem with Santa Clara County Parks funding road and airport responsibilities

(CGF sent out the following email about the County Habitat Plan and what we consider to be an inappropriate funding mechanism using the County Parks Charter funding. We will be following this closely. -Brian)

Dear Members of the Board of Supervisors:

To clarify comments the Committee for Green Foothills submitted at yesterday's (May 6th) Board meeting, we oppose the Habitat Plan recommendation announced yesterday to use County parkland purchased through the Parks Charter funding in order to mitigate habitat loss caused by other Santa Clara County government agencies.

The County voters passed Measure C in 1972 as a tax increase they imposed on themselves to provide an environmental benefit: more and better-maintained County Parks. The voters did not provide the County with this tax increase, and reaffirm it multiple times with the broad support of the environmental community, in order to enable road and airport expansion.

Using the Parks funding in this manner would convert it from an environmental benefit to an environmental mitigation, which is more than a semantic change. Environmental benefits are intended by voters to make us better off than would otherwise be the case, while environmental mitigation only makes up for other environmental harm and provides no net benefit. Because the voters expected a benefit, it would be highly inappropriate to change what the voters asked for.

I noted yesterday that County Counsel opined that using County Parkland for mitigation would be legal, and because we have had no opportunity to study the matter, we offer no opinion of our own at this point on its legality. As a matter of policy, however, it is clearly a bad one.

Similarly, County Parks Director indicated that she did not see this as harming County Parks, but that is not the appropriate test - the real issue is whether voters will get the environmental benefit that they voted for, and this proposal transforms a benefit into a mitigation without a net benefit.

The County Executive himself indicated that problems could result from mixing or apparent mixing of Parks funding and Roads funding, and we could not agree more. We request that this proposal be rejected.

Please contact us with any questions.

Sincerely,
Brian Schmidt

Brian Schmidt
Legislative Advocate, Committee for Green Foothills

Time to take a hike

The Merc has a good column today, "Fisher: County asks families to take a hike."

Patty Fisher reports on Santa Clara County Parks Department's new Healthy Trails campaign to encourage people to use our local county parks. They even point out that parks by the Bay and in the redwoods will be great places to cool off for the hot weekend.

Public access and use of open space is the best guarantee of public support for open space. Encouraging people to get outside is good for their health and great for the environment.

-Brian

News Release: Morgan Hill must hold developers to the Coyote Valley standard for cost recovery, environmentalists say

(CGF issued the following news release last week. -Brian)

Committee for Green Foothills
NEWS RELEASE

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: May 1, 2008

PRESS CONTACTS: Brian Schmidt, Legislative Advocate, phone (650) 968-7243, brian@greenfoothills.org

Morgan Hill must hold developers to the Coyote Valley standard for cost recovery, environmentalists say

IN COYOTE VALLEY, DEVELOPERS PAID ALL PLANNING AND ENVIRONMENTAL REVIEW COSTS FOR DEVELOPING THE AREA; Committee for Green Foothills states that Morgan Hill taxpayers deserve the same.

Committee for Green Foothills argues that Morgan Hill taxpayers have a right to expect the City-initiated planning for the "Southeast Quadrant" meet the same cost recovery standard imposed on developers by the City of San Jose for the Coyote Valley planning process. "San Jose also had a city-led process for analyzing potential development of Coyote Valley," said CGF Advocate Brian Schmidt, "but no one denied that the motivating force was the developers who owned much of the land. San Jose required developers to pay for every dime of environmental review and planning involving that area, and Morgan Hill taxpayers should not be presented with a bill for proposals that increase the property value in that area."

Last night, the Morgan Hill City Council voted to initiate an Environmental Impact Review (EIR) process to convert the Southeast Quadrant area mainly to non-agricultural use, with a small portion to be retained for agricultural or open space uses. The Council also voted to initiate a study of the feasibility of agricultural mitigation and long-term agricultural viability in the broader Morgan Hill area. "None of the EIR costs should be borne by taxpayers," said Schmidt. "These EIRs will only exist because of the landowner interests in development. As for the costs of studying the feasibility of agricultural mitigation, that's mitigation for the loss of farmland due to proposals like the Southeast Quadrant, and any transfer of developer responsibilities to taxpayers is unacceptable. Only costs for studying agricultural viability and mitigation separate from the rezoning proposals in the Southeast Quadrant should be handled by taxpayers.

Schmidt continued, "the Coyote Valley planning process was riddled with flaws, but at least they claimed to get back all the money they spent from the developers. If these Southeast Quadrant studies don't even meet that standard, we fear the other results may be even worse.

# # #

About the Committee for Green Foothills

Committee for Green Foothills is a regional grassroots organization working to establish and maintain land-use policies that protect the environment throughout San Mateo and Santa Clara Counties. Committee for Green Foothills, established in 1962, is a Bay Area leader in the continuing effort to protect open space and the natural environment of our Peninsula. For more information about the Committee for Green Foothills or about our work on this issue, visit www.GreenFoothills.org.

CGF comment: Significant problems with proposal to use County Parks funding to pay for County Habitat Plan

(We submitted the following comment about Santa Clara County Habitat Plan funding. -Brian)

Dear Members of the Board of Supervisors:

To clarify comments the Committee for Green Foothills submitted at yesterday's Board meeting, we oppose the Habitat Plan recommendation announced yesterday to use County parkland purchased through the Parks Charter funding in order to mitigate habitat loss caused by other Santa Clara County government agencies.

The County voters passed Measure C in 1972 as a tax increase they imposed on themselves to provide an environmental benefit: more and better-maintained County Parks. The voters did not provide the County with this tax increase, and reaffirm it multiple times with the broad support of the environmental community, in order to enable road and airport expansion.

Using the Parks funding in this manner would convert it from an environmental benefit to an environmental mitigation, which is more than a semantic change. Environmental benefits are intended by voters to make us better off than would otherwise be the case, while environmental mitigation only makes up for other environmental harm and provides no net benefit. Because the voters expected a benefit, it would be highly inappropriate to change what the voters asked for.

I noted yesterday that County Counsel opined that using County Parkland for mitigation would be legal, and because we have had no opportunity to study the matter, we offer no opinion of our own at this point on its legality. As a matter of policy, however, it is clearly a bad one.

Similarly, County Parks Director indicated that she did not see this as harming County Parks, but that is not the appropriate test - the real issue is whether voters will get the environmental benefit that they voted for, and this proposal transforms a benefit into a mitigation without a net benefit.

The County Executive himself indicated that problems could result from mixing or apparent mixing of Parks funding and Roads funding, and we could not agree more. We request that this proposal be rejected.

Please contact us with any questions.

Sincerely,
Brian Schmidt

Committee for Green Foothills cited in "Last Child in the Woods"

CGF got a brief mention in Last Child in the Woods, an important book about how children have been losing their connection to nature, particularly the opportunity for unstructured play. The updated edition of the book includes this about removing legal barriers to access due to liability fears:

While we wait for legal reform, environmental attorney Brian Schmidt has an idea that just might help. Schmidt is an advocate with the Committee for Green Foothills, an organization working to protect local natural environments in the South San Francisco Bay Area. To liberate natural play, he suggests the creation of what he calls a "Leave No Child Inside Legal Defense Fund," a foundation that would pay the legal defense costs of select institutions and individuals who encourage children to go outdoors but are then hit with frivolous lawsuits.

I've suggested the Leave No Child Inside idea just as my personal idea, not as an official CGF idea (we'd have to decide if its close enough to our mission to be something that CGF officially supported). It's nice though to have Committee for Green Foothills recognized in the book.

-Brian

MidPen expansion to the Coast is complete!

You probably thought that MidPen's expansion to the Coast, a major goal of CGF, had been completed years ago. That was effectively right, and now the final paperwork is done:

Victory for Open Space

Decades of effort by the Midpeninsula Regional Open Space District to dramatically expand the amount of coastal land in San Mateo County eligible for preservation may finally come to fruition, following a decision Wednesday by the state Supreme Court to reject a lawsuit seeking to block the expansion.

The court refused to review the February decision of a state appeals court that the district legally arranged to add as many as 144,000 acres of potential territory in coastal San Mateo County.

Now on to the work of protecting that open space!

-Brian

CGF is everywhere during Earth Week

CGF has four tabling events for Earth Week, which I think might be a CGF record for the most appearances in a few days.

I manned one table at Full Circle Farm, a community effort to bring farming back to Sunnyvale on an 11-acre parcel that is just getting going. This type of community farming is something we'd very much like to see, and will be discussed in our upcoming newsletter.

While there, I finally had the chance to meet people from Bon Appetit, an onsite restaurant company that won the Santa Clara County League of Conservation Voter's Green Business of the Year Award for their use of fresh, local produce. I wanted to talk to them about using locally produced meat as well as produce. Turns out they're already doing it, but there's always more to be done.

All in all, a nice chance to see people I might not otherwise see.

-Brian

CGF comments on Gavilan's Coyote Campus Draft EIR

(CGF submitted the following comments on the proposal to put a large college campus in the middle of North Coyote Valley, a sprawl-inducing proposal that makes no sense given the collapse of other Coyote Valley development plans. -Brian)

April 7, 2008

Dr. Steven Kinsella,
Gavilan College

Re: Comments on Gavilan College: Coyote Campus Project DEIR, SCH No. 2007122009

Dear Dr. Kinsella;

Thank you for the opportunity to comment on the Coyote Campus Project (“Project”) DEIR. We conclude that Gavilan College (“College”) cannot legally approve the Project based on the inadequate DEIR. We understand that other groups and individuals have concerns about the wildlife analysis in the DEIR, which we share. We submit the following additional comments:

• The DEIR fails to adequately discuss effects climate change has on water availability. A Superior Court finding that the State Department of Water Resources has not established the effect of climate change on water supplies (DEIR at 133) does not eliminate the College’s obligation to discuss the potential effects to the best of its ability. The DEIR fails to discuss whether the Project might have to be closed during droughts due to the effects of climate change. This inadequate discussion that fails to identify a significant impact leaves the DEIR critically flawed.

• The discussion fails to identify whether 100-year flood plains would change as the result of climate change.

• The discussion fails to include displacement of current farming elsewhere. Other agricultural production must take place of the lost production on this land and should be included in the emission totals. The DEIR therefore substantially underestimates the Project’s climate change impacts.

• The DEIR conclusion that no individually or cumulatively significant hydrological impacts will result from the project is incorrect. Reliance on compliance with NPDES HMP standards is inadequate to justify the less-than-significant conclusion, because those standards only satisfy the “maximum extent practicable” standards of the Clean Water Act and Porter-Cologne Act, and were not designed as thresholds of significance. See the attached White Paper, “Controlling Cumulative Impacts from Impervious Surfaces,” for more information. In particular, the failure to control for hydrological impacts from storms larger than 10-year storms is not addressed by either the HMP or by this DEIR, invalidating the DEIR’s conclusions regarding hydrology.

• The DEIR’s misplaces reliance on the compatibility between the IBM campus and nearby agriculture as the reason for concluding the Project will not be incompatible with nearby agriculture. The DEIR fails to compare the number of vehicle trips and the presence of people outdoors to the IBM campus for determining whether the Project would have a larger impact. The DEIR fails to analyze cumulative impacts from the Projects and other projects to determine whether they are incompatible with agriculture. Gavilan therefore cannot rely on the DEIR’s conclusions.

• The conclusion that LESA scores show an inadequate Site Assessment scores result from a flawed analysis that understates the true agricultural value. The high land costs are irrelevant to whether the land is potentially irrigable. The water table in Coyote Valley is known to be quite high, and irrigated agriculture exists throughout Coyote Valley. The LESA scores therefore underestimate the potentially significant impact of the loss of agricultural resources.

• The conclusion that the Project has no growth-inducing impacts is simply wrong. The discussion fails to consider that the lack of infrastructure is the primary obstacle to further development in Coyote Valley. Providing the extension of utilities along Bailey Avenue to the site will facilitate additional job development in Coyote Valley, making it more likely to reach the 5,000 jobs trigger found in the City of San Jose General Plan for large-scale development of the Valley. The conclusion that community colleges only serve growth instead of stimulating growth is both circular and ridiculous. No justification is given for this conclusion, when in fact a major development like the Project will have significant impacts. The complete lack of discussion as to whether the Project will encourage further development of the Coyote Valley Research Park, other industrial projects, or of a Coyote Valley Specific Plan-level residential development, fails to meet standards of EIR adequacy.

Please contact us if you have any questions.

Sincerely,

Brian A. Schmidt

Legislative Advocate, Santa Clara County