San Jose has the following scenarios in its proposed General Plan for future growth:
Scenario K - 339,530 new jobs and 158,970 new dwelling units (1.0 J/ER) (Jobs:Employed Resident ratio)
Scenario E - 360,550 new jobs and 135,650 new dwelling units (1.1 J/ER)
Scenario C - 346,550 new jobs and 88,650 new dwelling units (1.2 J/ER)
Scenario J - 526,000 new jobs and 88,650 new dwelling units (1.5 J/ER)
Generally accepted figure is that residences will have an average 1.7 people who are employed full time (or the equivalent of full time when multiple people employed part time are counted).Scenario J has a massive imbalance of housing and jobs.The 88,650 residences will provide housing for 151,000 employees and their families, while the 526,000 new employees will actually need 309,000 residences.The outcome then is that 158,000 residences will have to be built, somewhere, to accommodate these people.Most likely they'll be built in Central Valley, and those employees will be commuting.How this fits the City's claim to be planning for compact development is less than clear.
(I would have made the comments below to today's City Council meeting on its General Plan, but the mayor cut the time in half. I summarized instead. -Brian)
(UPDATE: The City Council protected Almaden Valley and mid-Coyote Valley, but not north Coyote Valley. So not too bad, but there's more to do.)
I want to address the suggestions in the supplemental documents for this item. The second Supplemental, from June 15, contains landowner suggestions to develop Almaden Valley and Coyote Valley Urban Reserves, and I think Councilmember Liccardo addressed this.
Developers have proposed in the June 3d Supplemental memo, suggesting that Scenario K be modified to add 10,000 residences to the proposed 50,000 jobs in North Coyote Valley. This is a bad idea, maybe the most environmentally destructive one in the packet. I would describe it as a "zombie idea," the walking dead version of the Coyote Valley Specific Plan that we thought we had been put down to rest in peace over a year ago. The proposal is really a stalking horse to get residential development and downplay jobs. All the reasons for not doing this became clear during the collapse of the Coyote Valley proposal and it shouldn't be revived now.
So what would be better? We suggest modifying Scenario K to remove the proposed 50,000 jobs from North Coyote Valley, based on the assumption that the Coyote Valley Research Park permits will expire without being used in 2011, as now appears highly likely. A certain number of the 50 thousand jobs could occur elsewhere, but mostly this scenario could be made much more politically realistic by somewhat reducing the total number of jobs and housing while keeping an appropriate balance. There is no need to expand the city outward and destroy this environmentally crucial area.
All the environmental and economic reasons for not developing urban reserves also apply to CV
The state budget emergency has led the governor to suggest closing most of California's state parks. Henry Coe Park, here in Santa Clara County, is one of the ones at risk, and Supervisor Yeager has proposed a temporary county takeover to keep it open.
One reason to do this is the increased problem of poaching in California. Wildlife is both more plentiful in parks and less wary of hunters, so the parks are targets for poachers. Full staffing by rangers, and the presence of witnesses in the form of park visitors, would be the best way to keep poaching limited.
-Brian
(Also worth adding is the problem of marijuana growers using public lands, an illegal, environmentally destructive, and potentially violent risk that could increase in closed parks.)
(Below is a piece I submitted to the KQED Perspectives program about the Stanford Sustainable Development Study. Unfortunately they thought the focus was too narrow for the broader Bay Area, but I still think it's worth getting the word out. -Brian)
Everyone talks about "environmental sustainability," but do we know what it really means? Claims of sustainability may amount to little more than greenwashing, with no more content or definition to them than being "Earth-Friendly".
This problem has happened in Santa Clara County, with an unfulfilled promise made by Stanford University. In return for massive development rights, the university promised a Sustainable Development Study to consider the sustainability of future buildout on its core campus land. Stanford recently turned in its Study and the County approved it.
The problem? Stanford refused to study the effect of buildout for more than twenty-five years into the future. But sustainability, if it means anything at all, can't ignore the effects beyond a single generation. Climate change, for example, would drop considerably as a priority if, like Stanford, we refused to consider development and consequences for more than twenty-five years. Stanford might not want to consider long-term sprawl effects, but is a short time frame sustainable?
These aren’t questions about an academic exercise but about the essential meaning of sustainability. Here's how little importance Stanford placed on sustainability – they refused to even define "sustainability" in their Sustainable Development Study. Good definitions exist – just ask former Stanford professor and Obama science advisor John Holdren – but here the long-term timeframe of sustainability definitions lost out to the desire to leave the door open for expanding development.
Being "Earth-Friendly" may now mean almost anything, but we can still rescue sustainability. For example, Stanford did accept that it would do another Sustainable Development Study for its next major permit. Next time, Stanford's famed academic rigor could be applied to the Study itself, with sustainability defined, with measurement criteria included, with performance analyses developed, and with defensible conclusions about the long-term sustainability of its land use. The next Study can still do it right.
If the concept of sustainability is itself going to be sustained, we must give it meaning, and we can't start too soon.
Last week we could celebrate the purchase of 966-acre Rancho San Vicente, an important link in a chain of protected land extending immediately south of San Jose. Environmental opposition to sprawl in Coyote Valley was crucial for stopping the sprawl proposal that the developers originally tried at San Vicente:
Tom deRegt, a partner in New Cities Development Group, said his firm decided to sell the Rancho San Vicente land for the same price it paid in 1998. Back then, he said, the driving force was Cisco Systems' plans for a new campus at Coyote Valley on Highway 101. "We felt the jobs created by Cisco would push the need for more housing, and that there would be a demand for executive housing," deRegt said. "Obviously things changed since then."
CGF and other organizations fought the Cisco project long enough for economic conditions to derail it, and then did so again with an even bigger proposal for Coyote Valley that stopped at an earlier stage. If either project had succeeded, the the speculative sprawl potential would have made San Vicente impossible to purchase.
And yesterday, San Jose's General Plan Task Force supported staff recommendations to not plan for development in Almaden Valley and Mid-Coyote Valley, and to keep Evergreen's industrial areas zoned industrial, all of which are supported by CGF:
A special panel charged with charting San Jose's long-term growth has put the city one step closer to keeping its undeveloped southern fringes — most prominently Coyote Valley — off-limits to new housing tracts.
Citing the cost of providing services to those far-flung areas, as well as the environmental damage that development might bring, the Envision San Jose 2040 Task Force voted overwhelmingly late Tuesday to keep the city's so-called "urban reserves" in Coyote Valley and Almaden Valley out of any future growth discussions.
In addition, the panel unanimously urged that open space in Evergreen — currently targeted for industrial uses — remain formally out of the mix for new homes. ...
Tuesday's meeting brought out scores of green and open space advocates who sought to reinforce those concerns and urge planners to focus on development already inside the urban core.
"Let's fix what we have first," said Helen Chapman, a director of the Committee for Green Foothills.
Of course they could have done more - in particular, they shouldn't continue to assume that development will come to North Coyote Valley, as the economic conditions haven't changed and the permits are about to expire. On the other hand, four years ago I really couldn't have imagined this - CGF was in the middle of a lawsuit to stop a stupid and dangerous soccer field complex in Alamden Valley farmland, and the plan to develop both North and Mid Coyote was on an express track. These changes are amazing.
-Brian
UPDATE: a short video showing San Vicente is here.
(We sent this letter out last week regarding preserving farmlands and stopping sprawl in San Jose. -Brian)
May 21, 2009
San Jose City Council Envision San Jose Task Force
Dear City Council and Task Force Members;
The Committee for Green Foothills urges you seize the opportunity presented to you both to preserve the farmlands adjacent to San Jose and also to plan for a balanced future of jobs and housing, not an imbalanced one forcing thousands of drivers to live elsewhere and commute to San Jose. Specifically, we ask you to do the following:
· Withdraw the Urban Growth Boundary (UGB) from South Almaden Valley.
· Plan for no development in Mid-Coyote Valley.
· Withdraw the UGB from North Coyote Valley. This would "grandfather" existing development and existing permits, but the Coyote Valley Research Park permits would not be renewed if they expire without construction, as seems very likely. A less-valuable but still beneficial alternative would be to leave the UGB unchanged but not plan for any development in North Coyote Valley during the General Plan timeframe.
· Require the development of a Farmland Mitigation Program prior to the conversion of prime farmland to other uses anywhere in the City
· Develop a "Green Vision" planning option with reasonable job growth numbers below ABAG projections, and with housing numbers that do not exceed a 1:1 Jobs:Employed Resident ratio. These are feasible numbers that keep development within the City's existing footprint without exporting housing needs to other cities and counties.
We live in a time of crisis and opportunity. We could repeat the many mistakes of previous decades, expanding development outward instead of making it more vibrant, quite possibly at the expense of making existing areas less vibrant by sucking development away from the City and into Coyote Valley. We could condemn thousands of acres of farmland immediately abutting San Jose, spreading the sprawl that currently washes from San Francisco to San Jose and bringing it so close to Morgan Hill that the alleged Coyote Valley "Greenbelt" would convert into a new wave of sprawl that merges San Francisco through San Jose all the way to Gilroy. Or we – starting with your leadership - could choose a different future.
You have the opportunity to transform the growing Silicon Valley into the "Silicon Archipelago" whose shores begin at San Jose. Cities of economically vibrant, high-tech development would be surrounded by productive farmland and environmentally vibrant, natural open space. The San Jose/Alviso/Milpitas area, excepting development merging with Santa Clara, already qualifies with open space and Baylands on three sides. The wonderful news just this week about protection of 966-acre Rancho San Vicente adds to this legacy, a feat that was possible expressly because Coyote Valley development has been stopped so far.
San Jose has Tule elk grazing within City limits. It has one of the best wildflower displays in the state. It has the Everglades of the West being restored to the north, and verdant river and creek courses connecting natural areas. What is missing is a vision that commits to protecting these areas, along with the farmland that physically connects natural areas together and connects the present and future San Jose to its past.
Everyone without their heads in the sand knows that the future of the climate crisis will require different planning from the past, stopping outward-sprawling expansion and preserving nearby farmland that bring us nutritious food from nearby - not from another hemisphere. You have the opportunity to plan for this future that preserves what we have and will make San Jose, and the greater region, a much better place. Please do this, and leave aside the proposals that move in the wrong direction.
Please contact us if you have any questions.
Sincerely, Brian A. Schmidt Legislative Advocate, Santa Clara County
DMB informed San Benito County officials today the company has officially withdrawn its proposal for the 6,800-unit El Rancho San Benito development northwest of Hollister off Highway 25, a planning official confirmed to the Free Lance. DMB representatives submitted the withdrawal letter to the county today and attributed the decision to the ailing economy, said Art Henriques, county planning director. "They indicated in the letter, clearly, there's a lot more going on in the world than just this project in San Benito County," Henriques said. "They have a significant company that is dealing with a global economy."
I'm sure economic conditions played a big role, but so could environmental opposition. While the project is in San Benito County, it is right across the county line from Santa Clara County and can have negative impacts on both counties. For example, below is a letter CGF wrote to the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors:
May 4, 2009
Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors
Re: The environmentally-destructive Rancho San Benito Proposal bordering Santa Clara County
Dear Members of the Board of Supervisors;
We wish to bring to your attention, and hopefully your engagement as a priority, the issue of a proposed massive development called Rancho San Benito that is immediately across the county border in San Benito County. This proposal would construct 6,800 residences and funnel the traffic onto highways heading up into Silicon Valley. The development would occur in the vicinity of the Pajaro River floodplain, one of only two wildlife corridors connecting The Santa Cruz Mountain Range with Mount Hamilton Range and the rest of California. The development would convert agricultural land to other uses in area that is still relatively close to massive Bay Area population but still undeniably viable for farming and ranching on both sides of the county border.
Given the above, the Committee for Green Foothills Board of Directors resolved on April 29, 2009:
1. that Committee for Green Foothills opposes the proposed Rancho San Benito in San Benito County, a massive development project adjacent to Santa Clara County; and 2. that Committee for Green Foothills urges Santa Clara County to oppose the Rancho San Benito project and to work to minimize the project's environmental harm to Santa Clara County;
We understand that other environmental organizations in the Bay Area and in San Benito County share our concerns, and we urge the Supervisors to make this issue a priority.
Thank you for your time, and please contact us if you have any questions.
I delivered that letter on Tuesday and gave a public statement, and was informed that the Supervisors considered it a sufficiently serious issue that scheduled a special hearing on it.
Also below is a letter we wrote but didn't send yet to San Benito County (needs to be revised now, obviously):
San Benito County Board of Supervisors Mr. Art Henriques, County Planning
Re: Opposition to the environmentally-destructive Rancho San Benito Proposal
Dear Members of the Board of Supervisors and Mr. Henriques;
The Committee for Green Foothills' mission is to protect open space and natural resources in Santa Clara and San Mateo Counties. Protecting these counties necessarily overlaps with protecting similar environmental qualities with neighboring counties including San Benito County. While we do not regularly operate in San Benito County, we recognize that stopping sprawl, reducing traffic, protecting air quality, preserving farming and ranching, and keeping viable and healthy populations of fish and wildlife are issues that cross county borders.
For all these reasons, the Committee for Green Foothills' Board of Directors decided in April to officially oppose the unnecessary and environmentally-destructive Rancho San Benito Proposal. This proposal to create a large new city in San Benito County without incorporating the new city will have significant traffic impacts, in effect "jumping the line" of every single commuter in San Benito County today that heads north for work. The proposal would impose a city, unnecessarily, in the vicinity of the Pajaro River corridor, a crucial environmental corridor of streams, natural habitats, and farmland that keep the California coastal mountain ranges connected to the Mount Hamilton Range and the rest of California. The proposal would harm the farming and ranching business in an area where that business is currently thriving, and recreate the same urban-agricultural interface that has created problems in the past.
These are only some of the potential environmental problems of the Rancho San Benito Proposal. Given the redevelopment possibilities elsewhere, there is no need to consider this project. And these impacts are not just limited to San Benito County – the same traffic impacts, Pajaro corridor impacts, and farming impacts will occur in Santa Clara County. For those reasons, we have already asked the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors to oppose this project and to closely monitor and be involved with environmental planning for the project.
If the project proponents and the County decide they will continue planning this project, it will be essential that an extremely thorough environmental review accompany the project. The project will likely require many environmental mitigations to reduce its environmental impacts, if it is approved at all. It may very well additionally require significant downsizing from the current proposal of 6,800 residences. The best approach is simply not to start.
We anticipate that if this planning continues, we will continue to monitor it closely, as well as ensure that Santa Clara County does its share of due diligence over the issue.
We thank the Supervisors for their time, and please contact us if you have any questions.
Previously we wrote a comment letter to the Notice of Preparation for the environmental report. I attended a meeting in San Benito County and another in Monterey County about the project, and several in Gilroy that partially concerned it as well. While CGF was one of several groups showing their concern, I think the fact that environmental groups weren't going to let this project skate by with minimal review was obvious, and played a role in the decision to pull it.
The future of the south Santa Clara County and San Benito County, or at least a hopeful future, is not Silicon Valley sprawl. It's a Silicon Archipelago, of vibrant towns with housing and jobs, surrounded by a rural atmosphere that people love to reach, and not miles of suburbia. Rancho San Benito adds nothing to existing towns and cities, and instead detracts from them as well as threatening farmland and natural lands. This proposal stopped for the time being at least, and that's a very good thing.
CGF Board Member and former CGF President Tom Jordan gets a wonderful and well-deserved retrospective of his environmental career at the Palo Alto Weekly:
With his law office in San Jose, Jordan became chairman of the San Jose Goals Committee, a quest to make the rapidly developing City of San Jose a more attractive place. "Our No. 1 recommendation was to hire a professional planning director for the city," Jordan recalled. At the time, the city's public works director, who was in charge of roads and sewers, also handled city planning.
"San Jose was growing rapidly, absolutely everywhere," Jordan said. "You'd drive down to the south or east and go through 300 yards of orchard -- and then there'd be a housing development."It's not so much that it was bad; it was just completely unplanned."
The city hired its first professional planner. "He did quite a bit to make San Jose look better than it would have without him," Jordan said.
Later in the 1960s Jordan joined the board -- and became president -- of the Committee for Green Foothills, a nonprofit organization protecting local open space, which counted acclaimed novelist Wallace Stegner its first president in 1962.
It was because of the Committee for Green Foothills' "squeaky clean" reputation, Jordan thinks, that he was asked to head up the "residentialist" forces in an epic Palo Alto political battle in 1967, when a pro-development group attempted to recall the entire Palo Alto City Council.
As they say, read the whole thing. And congratulations, Tom!
I normally try to post most of my written communications here on the blog. In the case of the Stanford Study, much of that didn't happen due to everything going on. Below the fold are a few of the things I wrote during that time:
-------------- (A short PowerPoint presentation on the failure to define "sustainability")
------------------------
(More on what should have been included)
Principles for a new chapter in the Stanford Sustainable Development Study regarding the Academic Growth Boundary and Stanford's future after 2035
Academic growth needs: While acknowledging that significant increases in Stanford's population and square footage beyond that discussed in the Study's Scenario C could have environmental impacts on issues such as transportation and greenhouse gas emissions, an equivalent or greater amount of development than Scenario C could be added after 2035 without fundamentally and negatively altering the character of Stanford's core campus. There is therefore no foreseeable academic need for expanding development beyond the AGB.
Additional issues regarding sustainability and the AGB: As Stanford increases in population and square footage, the need for nearby, accessible open space also increases.
As Stanford increases in population, the people brought to the area by Stanford will make increasing use of open space lands not owned by Stanford. Any reduction of Stanford's open space by expanding beyond the AGB would exacerbate the environmental impact on non-Stanford land.
Environmental benefits such as public transit and walkability increase through concentrating Stanford development within the AGB as opposed to expanding the existing the AGB.
Long-term conservation biology projects are in place in the Stanford Foothills and could be harmed or destroyed by expanding the AGB.
Stanford's proposed 50-year Habitat Conservation Plan also relies on protection of much of the Stanford Foothills.
The Stanford Research Park and Stanford Shopping Center areas are Stanford-owned land that are not being used for its core academic mission and could be converted back to academic work rather than encroach upon the Stanford Foothills.
Online distance learning provides a significant avenue for potential growth for Stanford while avoid many environmental impacts, including impacts on open space.
Conclusion: There is no foreseeable academic need to expand beyond the AGB after 2035, and environmental principles for making Stanford University a sustainable community make maintaining the existing AGB even more important as development continues at Stanford. This Study concludes for the foreseeable future after 2035, the Academic Growth Boundary should not be changed.
-----------------
(Still more on what should have been included)
Should describe what sustainable development would look like
Should describe constraints on development: Water Sewer Energy Energy transmission Greenhouse gas emissions Other pollutants Waste generation Hazardous waste - full life cycle Development density relative to surrounding communities
Should describe to what extent, if at all, Stanford's development would need to go beyond the Academic Growth Boundary for the foreseeable future. Should describe the relationship between open space and increased development Should describe alternatives to extending into the foothills, including converting Stanford Research Park and Shopping Center back to core mission Should describe the role of online study
Should describe what is the likely cap on overall development Should describe role of satellite campuses, off-site offices, and effect on overall sustainability Should describe the relationship between increased development and increased traffic, and the traffic's effect on sustainability
Should describe other indicators of sustainability Should indicate whether the intent is enough housing for all people studying and working on campus, including affordable housing Should describe conservation biology goals for areas beyond the AGB for the foreseeable future, including but not limited to the habitats and time frame of the Stanford HCP Should describe the relationship between new development and compliance with AB 32 and SB 375 and their likely successors for the foreseeable future (could be done by describing role in County's compliance or by analyzing as if the laws applied to Stanford as a separate entity).
-------------
(My notes when I prepared to speak at the April 7, 2009 hearing)
2035 is only ten years past the expiration of the existing 2025 Academic Growth Boundary at Stanford. Should we care about what happens after 2035?
Is it possible to plan past 2035? Stanford thinks so.
How can anyone plan beyond 25 years? Different levels of specificity (and remember non-binding)
Would it do any good to make extend this study past 2035? It would influence the next General Use Permit and the next Sustainable Development Study if it did extend longer. So long as Stanford keeps thinking in the back of their heads that "the phase after this next one is when we make the Foothills look like the core campus," then they won't commit to planning the foothills for permanent low-impact outdoor recreation, low-impact studies, and conservation biology projects. Extending the Study period outward, together with the next Study, would help shake off that mindset.
Finally, the Committee strongly urges the Supervisors NOT to take the approach of letting Stanford off with something inadequate now under the idea that they'll be held to a higher standard next time. Frankly, we've heard that before regarding Stanford's environmental commitments and it will happen again in the future if it's not stopped. The next Sustainable Development Study, for example, can be improved by developing it simultaneously with the next General Use Permit, but that shouldn't let Stanford out of its current commitment. The current Study should be rejected until extends closer to what Stanford promised, or at least significantly past 2035.
I had overlooked that staff's Attachment G enumeration of the legislative history citation also contained something of a response. Going through them briefly: #1. Palo Alto's letter: Staff ignores the key term in the Palo Alto letter, that the vision should describe the "ultimate buildout" of the campus. That became the "maximum planned buildout potential". It's how the concept originated, and they're ignoring it because the term "ultimate" is inconvenient for their interpretation. #2. Menlo Park: less important, but still an indication that the non-binding Study was to substitute for a lack of permanent protection, and a ten-year extension doesn't fit that role. #3. Simitian written comments: he puts the terms together. Contra staff's earlier statement in its attachment, the Sustainable Development Study combines Beall's suggestion of such a study with Simitian's suggestion of a Buildout Study. Simitian wrote this one month before he made the motion that made the Study part of the GUP. #4. Transcript of hearing: staff incorrectly says the concept of clustering credits was abandoned. Instead the only two Supervisors who spoke on the subject of the contents of the Study said that credits "can be looked at in the Sustainable Development Study". It would be nonsensical to look at credits for a study that extends the Academic Growth Boundary for only ten years, so I can't see how to avoid concluding that the staff's interpretation is that the Supervisors were being nonsensical. We disagree.
In a surprising reversal of a decision made less than two months ago, a Santa Clara County commission is recommending an all-out ban on plastic shopping bags and a fee on paper bags.
The Recycling and Waste Reduction Commission, made up of elected leaders from around the county, plans to ask county supervisors and all 15 cities to adopt the proposal for grocers and other retailers, with an exemption for nonprofit "reuse" stores such as Goodwill.
I attended the previous meeting and was disappointed at the slow pace, so this is an excellent step. The Committee has supported a fee on both paper and plastic bags - we haven't called for a ban on plastic, but we don't oppose one either.
As the article says, this is just advisory, but let's hope the cities move forward. As always, San Jose is the 800-pound gorilla in terms of impact, so we'll be watching carefully.
I took a small video of the climbing area in Sanborn Park that's described in the Spring 2009 Green Footnotes (CGF members already have the hard copy, and it will also be posted on our website):
CGF has had a busy Earth Week, with tabling events in both of our counties. Tomorrow should be an especially interesting one in Morgan Hill, where our organization is a member of the Morgan Hill Chamber of Commerce and an active participant with the Chamber's Environmental Affairs Council organizing the main Earth Day activities in Morgan Hill.
We've had our share of disagreements with the various Chambers in Santa Clara County, but each one has a different personality, and the Morgan Hill Chamber has avoided the anti-environment positions we've seen elsewhere. This is a very hopeful aspect of our region's future, and we will continue to work on building the potential for environmental protection and business development.
(CGF sent the following thank you and suggestion to Supervisors Kniss, Yeager, and Cortese for their resolution that went beyond the staff recommendation of simply approving Stanford's draft Sustainable Development Study. We hope that some years in the future, Supervisors Yeager and Cortese will have the chance to support our suggestion of making a new Study simultaneous with a new GUP. -Brian)
Dear President Kniss, Vice-President Yeager, and Supervisor Cortese:
I would just like to thank you all (somewhat belatedly) on behalf of the Committee for Green Foothills for your work on the Stanford Sustainable Development Study and the resolution that you passed. While more could always be done, and we would like to do more, we also very much appreciate your decision to go beyond what was placed in front of you and to make findings and recommendations that we believe will help direct future development on Stanford lands in a more sustainable direction.
In particular, President Kniss and Supervisor Cortese had a useful discussion that clarified doing another Sustainable Development Study right before or right after the next General Use Permit would be of relatively little use. One idea we would like to explore in the future, however, is that a Study could be developed simultaneously with the next the GUP, just as the EIR for the next GUP would develop simultaneously. The initial, broad outlines of the GUP proposal could direct the initial framework of both the EIR and the Sustainable Development Study. If at any point the EIR or Study show environmental problems, they could provide feedback that would help redirect the GUP proposal in a more environmental benign and sustainable direction. The EIR process can work this way, so there is no reason why a Sustainable Development Study can't as well.
President Kniss is quite correct that the next GUP will likely occur after her term in office, but both Vice-President Yeager and Supervisor Cortese may have the chance to help direct it. The Committee for Green Foothills will be happy to provide any assistance.
Thanks again.
Sincerely, Brian Schmidt Legislative Advocate, Committee for Green Foothills
Well, it may not be surprising, but it's still disappointing that Santa Clara County didn't require Stanford to do an adequate job on it's Sustainable Development Study. The Study was an important requirement of the 2000 General Use Permit that Stanford mostly dismissed with a recitation of ongoing campus programs rather than an analysis over whether the campus is on a sustainable path. The main problem, besides the lack of real analysis, was an artificially-short 25 year time frame that makes it impossible to consider whether an existing trend has a long-run impact. We've covered this at various times on our website, beginning here and in some detail here.
The Supervisors did vote for a few findings and recommendations for future improvements that the Board of Supervisors could use someday, when Stanford exhausts its current General Use Permit. These will have some value in instilling the concept of sustainability in future environmental planning, although it should have been done now.
Unfortunately, only three of the five Supervisors supported even these findings and recommendations, but we do thank Supervisors Kniss, Yeager, and Cortese for doing so. We at the Committee especially appreciate President Kniss and her aide Scott Strickland for their efforts at improvements.
So whenever things don't go as well I'd like, I always think of what I should have or could have done better. In this case it was trying to get the Supervisors to require a future Sustainable Development Study be developed simultaneously with the development a future General Use Permit, which would help redirect the Permit in a more sustainable direction. I think the Supervisors missed the idea of simultaneity. All I can say now is that we can try again to make that happen when the next Permit rolls around.
I'll add some follow-up posts that will take care of some old business on this issue during the week. We especially thank everyone who wrote into the Supervisors and asked for the improvements. We got something out of it, and we're ready for next time.
The Environmental Protection Agency announced today that it plans to test air quality at selected schools nationwide to better understand whether outdoor toxic air pollution poses health risks to students.
Stevens Creek Elementary in Cupertino is one of 62 schools nationwide and the only school in Northern California on the list. The campus was chosen because it is located about two miles from the Hanson Cement plant on Stevens Creek Boulevard.
We have a number of concerns about the quarry and the cement plant, one of which is whether the coke- and coal-burning operations are responsible for any of the mercury contamination in nearby streams and reservoirs. Hopefully this test will help us understand that.
Several years ago, we persuaded Santa Clara County to end a practice of sharing preliminary versions of EIRs with developers while denying access to the rest of us - a practice that skewed the EIRs and gave developers a chance to argue their case behind closed doors while the community at large was excluded.
I put together some notes below on the issue that might help people elsewhere who encounter the same problem.
-Brian
(Click "Read More" for full post.)
Notes on Public Records Act and ADEIR disclosures:
" 60. Accepted report relating to process for public viewing of preliminary draft Environmental Impact Reports (EIR). . Referred to Administration for report on date uncertain: Preparation of report regarding options to share preliminary draft EIR with applicant and public."
Same 2.8.05 meeting, county counsel Ann Ravel recommends disclosure to the public any doc shared with applicant:
" Ms Ravel comments that while the staff position on allowing the public to view the EIRs is legally defensible, she recommends any documents provided to the applicant also be provided to the public."
Also:
" In response to an inquiry by Supervisor Gage, Ms Ravel clarifies that the County complies with CEQA requirements; however, there is a possibility that County compliance with Public Records Act requirements could be challenged since the documents are provided to one member of the public, the applicant, and not provided to the public in general. . Supervisor Gage expresses concern for the impact on the public if incorrect information is distributed early in the process. . On motion of Supervisor Alvarado, seconded by Supervisor McHugh, it is unanimously ordered on roll call vote that report be accepted relating to process for public viewing of preliminary draft Environmental Impact Reports (EIRs). . Further, on motion of Supervisor Alvarado, seconded by Supervisor McHugh, it is unanimously ordered on roll call vote that preparation of options to share preliminary draft EIR with applicant and public, or to not allow applicant or public to view preliminary draft EIR until later in the process, be referred to the Administration for report on date uncertain."
3. Took actual action on 4.5.05, Item 48: http://www.sccgov.org/portal/site/scc/boardagenda?contentId=3017e9b32e454010VgnVCM10000048dc4a92____&agendaType=BOS%20Agenda
" Option 4: Partial Outside Review of ADEIR Under this option, early versions of the ADEIR would not be made available to anyone except County staff but later versions of the ADEIR would be provided to both the owner/applicant and any member of the public who requests a copy. Benefits: (1) There would be no threat of a lawsuit for an alleged violation of the Public Records Act as the ADEIR would be equally available to the public and owner/applicant (2) If the owner/applicant was shown the project description section of the ADEIR, they could still validate the accuracy of this section of the document and take steps to modify the project to avoid or mitigate identified significant impacts. Drawbacks: (1) Disclosure of erroneous information. While later drafts of the ADEIR would likely be more accurate in describing the project characteristics and County procedures, it may still include misleading information thereby resulting in confusion and an increase in the time needed to review the ADEIR. (2) No established protocol for receipt of comments. Similar to Option 3, there would be no formal procedures for responding to comments received from the public or project applicant / owner. (3) Less meaning assigned to the Draft EIR. To a lesser degree than under Option 3, there may be less value placed on the DEIR as there may be a perception that the public review has already occurred.
(4) Delay in project modification by owner: While the owner may still respond to identified benefits by modifying the project to avoid environmental impacts, this will occur later in the process and could necessitate additional review times."
"Further, on motion of Supervisor Gage, seconded by Supervisor Beall, it is unanimously ordered on roll call vote of three to one, with Supervisor McHugh voting no and Supervisor Alvarado absent, that staff be directed to allow applicant and general public to view an ADEIR once staff determines that the ADEIR is suitable for outside review."
We had flood warnings over the weekend that didn't amount to much, fortunately. Yesterday the weather cleared enough to show the Mount Hamilton Range covered in snow, which helps a great deal. The higher-altitude precipitation comes down as snow instead of rain during storm events and melts slowly over a period of days, instead of surging down in a few hours with all the other rain.
That's how it's happened in the past and today, but will be less true in the future due to climate change. While more intense storms and flooding are a possible consequence of warming due to changed weather patterns, that effect is hard to quantify. Changing from snow to rain, however, isn't so hard to make some rough calculations.
The saturated adiabatic lapse rate is just under 5 degrees Celsius per 1000 meters. The standard prediction from the latest International Panel on Climate Change for warming in the next few decades is .2 degrees Celsius per decade. Putting the two figures together means that after ten years, the snow line in a typical storm would be 40 meters higher than today, or 80 meters higher after 20 years (about 130 and 260 feet, respectively). While that may not sound like a lot, it could potentially turn a great deal of snowfall into rain, and it's only going to get worse.
While this is far from the most serious climate change impact, it's fairly quantifiable. The question is whether land use agencies will take this under consideration in their new responsibilities to prepare for flooding.
-Brian
UPDATE: See page 2 to see a graph of California temperatures. It's in Fahrenheit, but looks like roughly .5 degrees/decade, or about the same as the IPCC global prediction in Celsius.
(Another in my occasional series of notes from meetings, this one a briefing by the Water District to other agencies regarding new requirements under California law AB162 to address flooding issues in General Plan revisions. Hopefully it translates beyond just being notes to myself. -Brian)
AB162 Meeting Notes Feb 18 at Water District
Mandatory for housing revision after 1/1/09
Also requires flood analysis in land use, housing, conservation, and safety
Requires local govts to collaborate plan for and reduce flood risks
Requires update frequency, content analyses for flood and data required
Q for audience when planning GP updates?
Mtn View expects complete by end 2010
Water Board proposing new beneficial use- flood storage
County just working on housing
San jose – almost done with housing, comp update end by 2011
Palo Alto – amending GP just cleanup, draft hsg by june 30
Cupertino – updating housing, haven't begun GP update
Santa Clara city – GP update in 2010
Campbell Sunnyvale, LA Hills – working on hsg
General hierarchy of 162
Rv FEMA maps, DWR maps, any relevant COE maps/data
162 says updates of hsg triggers updates of two other elements (my note – if this is true, major probs ahead)
Water Dist draft Comp Plan URL:state-scvwdcp.migcom.com
Land use element
162 req annual rv of areas subject to mapping from FEMA and DWR – NEW
Must i.d. flood risk areas – overlay
Specified data from FEMA or DWR
Msc.fema.gov
Releasing gis online in may
Other data also useful – such as historic flooding data from Wat Dist – flood damages reports dating back to 1967 with maps
Online at Valleywater.org – flood protection – flooding in valley – historic flood reports
My notes – this is good – cannot ignore historic flooding data
Opportunity to consider how imperv surface lead to increased flooding among other impacts
Conservation element – upon next revision of hsg element, the conservation element – i.d. streams, flood corridors, rip habitats, and land that may accommomodate flloddwater for purposes of groundwater recharge and stormwater mgmt.
Safety element – reviewed every time housing element reviewed
Min risks of llod to new development; evaluate whether ne dev should be located flood zones; maintain pub services during flooding; locate essential facilities outside flood hazard; establish coop among pub agencies resp for flood protection
A flood ordinance can replace or be the relevant part of safety element if meets same requirements
Opportunities – policies that reduce runoff and increase absorption
Housing -consider level of protection provided by flood mgmt infrastructure
City of Richmond incorporating a climate change element into their GP
Feb 26th joint venture climate change and transprortclimate action plan for san jose
A significant piece of disinformation from the DrudgeReport, Washington Times, and various anti-environment website claim that $30 million from the stimulus package will be spent on the salt marsh harvest mouse in Nancy Pelosi's San Francisco Congressional District. It's not true, as laid out by Paul Rogers in the Mercury News. A portion of the $30 million that the California Coastal Commission has in "shovel-ready" projects involve wetland restoration, and some of that includes the South Bay Salt Ponds restoration. That land has already been purchased by the government and just needs funding to begin the restoration process for the benefits of hunters, fishermen, wildlife viewers, game species, and endangered species including, yes, the harvest mouse. It's unfortunate that anti-environmental groups would misuse false statements.
Second, the San Francisco Bay Regional Water Board has listed many streams in the South Bay as "impaired" due to trash (news article here, more information at the Water Board website here). This means we need to do a lot more to get trash out of streams, and supports the carry-out bag fee now being considered by Morgan Hill and other local cities.
Important not to overlook these victories. At the end of 2008, Santa Clara County instituted new "Green Building" rules for residential development that required minimizing the impacts from new residences and major remodels (info here).
While the County staff planned to require more from larger homes, they also planned to stop requiring more at a certain point. We successfully convinced the County that monster mansion impacts continue as they increase in size, so the required "Build It Green" points needed will also have to increase with size.
The new standards will reduce the climate change impacts from the homes, they encourage such things as native plant use and reduced visibility, and the reduce the economic incentive for sprawling monster mansions, all of which supports CGF's core mission.
The second ongoing victory is at Moffett Field, where the US Navy took another major step towards restoring polluted lands as tidal wetlands. CGF had been involved in this effort several years ago (a major effort by Save the Bay), and when the Navy indicated it would go in this direction, we've limited ourselves to monitoring it. Great to see it moving closer to realization.
Just a note for myself and others - the California Fire Threat Map is here. Much of our hillsides are "Very High" fire hazard rated, still more reason not to develop them.
(CGF submitted the following comments for a massive project proposed in San Benito County that could affect Santa Clara County. -Brian)
February 2, 2009
Re: NOP Comments for El Rancho San Benito Master Community Specific Plan
Dear Mr. Henriques;
Please consider the following in preparation of the EIR for the El Rancho San Benito project:
·Effect on 500 year floods – it is foreseeable that flooding impacts will be considered by FEMA within the 500 year time frames.One can reasonably assume the constructed project will last at least 50 years, giving a 10% chance of a 500-year flood, and non-negligible chances of multiple 500-year floods.These impacts are not remote and speculative and therefore must be addressed.
·Hydromodification basin in flood plain – the EIR must address how it will function during flooding, when the current information about the project suggests the basin will itself be flooded during peak periods.
·Cumulative impacts of increased impervious surfaces not addressed by NPDES permits must themselves be addressed.Simple compliance with NPDES permits is insufficient to eliminate all cumulative impacts because NPDES permits contain exemptions for the size of storm event to be mitigated, cost of mitigation etc.See attached White Paper for more information.
·Cut and fill – should not assume that the need for cut and fill will occur simultaneously, addressing only the difference between the two.The EIR should assume the fill need will occur first, and track impact of needing the entire fill, and should assume the cut need will occur later and describe impact of disposing of the cut material
·The Amah-Mutsun Native American community should be consulted regarding areas of cultural significance.
·The EIR should address wetlands impacts as defined by either soils, standing water, or hydrophitic vegetation instead of requiring all three to be present.It is immaterial whether a Clean Water Act permit is necessary.All wetland impacts must be addressed regardless of whether the wetland is defined as part of the waters of the United States under the Clean Water Act.
·The EIR should address impacts from potential climate change, including potential reduced water availability.
·The EIR should consider alternatives where the equivalent development is dispersed within city limits in San BenitoCounty; within city limits in San Benito and Santa ClaraCounties; and within San Benito, Santa Clara, and MontereyCounties.There is no reason to limit alternative discussions to single areas that can accommodate equivalent amounts of growth; instead the growth can be dispersed.
·The EIR should discuss impacts from developing residential and non-residential uses at different periods, and mitigations that keep residential development from outpacing non-residential development until all the non-residential development is complete.
In the parks and along the trails of the Peninsula and South Valley, Indian families can be a common sight, with older women sometimes wearing saris and sandals picking their way along the dirt paths.
All cultures demonstrate a desire to be in nature and to seek wisdom. The strength of that interest in Indian and South Asian cultures transplanted to the Bay Area will have many sources, but one of those sources dates back to one of the most important epic stories from India, the Ramayana.
The myth, over two thousand years old, primarily concerns Prince Rama and a war he fought to recover his wife Sita from abduction by the demon king Ravana, followed by Rama's ascension as a king himself. The story goes far beyond a simple plot to outline relationships and duties in a community and how to achieve the wisdom needed to perform one's duties. Much of that wisdom comes from the extensive time spent in nature.
Prince Rama himself and one of his brothers spend fourteen years in "vanvas" (hermitage/exile) in a forest, where they lose their royal softness and learn from the spiritual hermits they encounter. In turn, Rama's sons Lava and Kusha are born and grow up in vanvas under the tutelage of the sage Valmiki, and only returning to civilization when they become adult heirs of Rama.
The one person connecting these two episodes is Sita, who spent both periods in exile, first with her husband and then with her sons. Her willingness to be in nature, even during hardship, exceeds that of any other figure.
There almost seems to be a connection between this strong foundational figure of Indian literature living in nature with the many strong women that founded the nature conservation groups here in the Bay Area. Other connections between Ramayana and Bay Area nature include a positive attitude to animals - a monkey king and his army fight alongside Rama to retrieve the kidnapped Sita from demons. Even vultures, commonly sighted here but not looked on that fondly in European culture, are represented in Ramayana by the vulture demi-god Jatayu, who fights the demon Ravana to prevent Sita's kidnapping from their forest home. Failing to stop the abduction and mortally wounded, Jatayu survives long enough to tell the frantic Rama the direction to search for his wife. Someone from this cultural background might not be disappointed to learn the big bird they see flying is a vulture instead of a hawk.
Sita even ties into the environmental concern with agriculture as much as nature. According to the myth, she was found as a baby in a plowed field, a daughter of the Mother Earth Goddess Bhuma Devi.
The Bay Area's ethnic diversity will help strengthen its environmental commitment. The obvious enjoyment among Indian families for our local natural open spaces helps verify this, as does the wisdom of myths and legends from a diversity of cultural backgrounds.
Lots to be done, but we'll be working hard to do it.
Bonus blogging - new information's out showing the earthquake hazard of building in floodplains of major streams: "If a major earthquake rattles the South Bay, the sandy soils alongside San Jose's two largest rivers pose the highest risks to modern businesses and homes in Santa Clara County, according to new seismic maps by the U.S. Geological Survey. The maps reveal the hidden danger along San Jose's ancestral Guadalupe River and Coyote Creek flood plains...."
Still more reasons to keep those floodplains natural and open, whenever possible.
A very good project undertaken by Patagonia: Freedom to Roam, a project to "create, restore, and protect wildways or corridors between habitats so animals can survive."
We at the Committee have done extensive work to protect local wildlife corridors, both the crucially-threatened one in Coyote Valley and others throughout the South Bay and South Valley. While Patagonia's project map focuses on national-scale corridors, local ones are just as important.
(Not sure how useful this will be, but Lennie and I testified at today's San Mateo Planning Commission about Stanford's inadequate Sustainable Development Study. Attached below are my notes, improved somewhat so others might understand them. I think we had some success persuading the Commission and maybe staff. -Brian)
Primary disagreement with staff - 25 year limitation on analyzing sustainability
Question is whether this fully complies with what Stfd promised, and if not whether SM county should be interested in promoting compliance
Not just a check-off box - Stanford MUST submit an adequate plan to continue new development
Two problems with the non-compliance – nowhere in the permit plan or admin record was the study limited to a restricted time frame – a lot of info suggests otherwise
Second, that by definition you can't do an adequate sustainability study while limiting it to a short time frame like 25 years
No definition was included – page 94
Here's a def they could use: "A sustainable process or condition is one that can be maintained indefinitely without progressive diminution of valued qualities inside or outside the system in which the process operates or the condition prevails."
No criteria for measurement, analysis, or conclusions re sustainability
Just one example of effects on SM County – traffic impacts from development post-2035
Can you analyze beyond 2035 - yes, two examples
Not sure about your process – I suggest you recommend letter not go forward as written
Analogy - Alpine Road sidewalk expansion also failed to meet Stanford's original promise
Encouraged by Joe Stagner's reference to planning to 2050
(We submitted the letter below to the City of Morgan Hill regarding the proposal to require a fee for using plastic or paper bags. -Brian)
January 8, 2009
Tony Eulo
City of Morgan Hill
Re:Committee for Green Foothills' support for the Single-Use Carryout Bag Fee Ordinance
Dear Tony;
The Committee for Green Foothills supports Morgan Hill's proposed Bag Fee Ordinance.As any Morgan Hill resident that has taken the opportunity to hike Coyote Ridge can see (and if any residents haven't hiked there, they should), even a well-managed landfill like Kirby Landfill has problems with wind-blown plastic bags escaping the landfill and polluting the countryside.These bags often settle in Coyote Ridge stream areas where they obstruct growth of endangered plants only found by the streams.Any streamside hiker or canoeist throughout the County will find countless plastic bags along larger creeks and rivers, and bags often obstruct storm sewer grates and limit flooding drainage.From the esthetic ugliness along roadsides alone, plastic bags constitute the perfect example of an environmental externality whose cost, absent the proposed fee, is imposed instead on society at large.
Paper bags create similar problems.When we opposed the permanent logging permit that San Jose Water Company requested for thousands of acres of redwoods and Douglas firs from Lexington Reservoir extending southeast halfway to Morgan Hill, we were appropriately challenged as to where wood and wood pulp would come from instead.An important response to this challenge is to avoid wasting wood pulp and energy in paper bags, and the fee will appropriately reduce that waste.
We hope that Morgan Hill will move forward in support of the position of City staff, Santa Clara County Cities Association, and the Recycling and Waste Reduction Commission of Santa Clara County.
I recently came across the Livable Streets Network, an online community of smart-growth activism. They could be thought of as being just across the fence from CGF - we work to fight bad growth in the form of sprawl, and they work to get smart growth in the form of livable cities. Both efforts work hand-in-hand. There are some cross-cutting issues as well, so I'll be adding them to our links list on the right side of this blog.
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.
(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
(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 StanfordUniversity
·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 StanfordUniversity on all unincorporated lands within Santa ClaraCounty.
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.
