Toxic explosion in East Palo Alto has uncertain effect on the Baylands

(Guest posting by CGF volunteer Annie Ryan.)

On June 5th of this year, a four-thousand gallon mixture of volatile and­­ semi-volatile organic compounds exploded inside a tanker truck at the East Palo Alto Romic toxic waste facilities, and subsequently escaped from the tanker into the air (the press release avoided the word “exploded” and said “reacted chemically” instead). A mist spread over the Bay Road complex, nearby homes, and the immediately adjacent Bayland marshes before coating the ground, leaving buildings, roads, and wetland plants covered in a residue of sticky black dots. Immediately following the spill, nearby residents were warned to stay inside their homes pending a further investigation into the cause and severity of the spill. Following the incident, the Environmental Protection Agency released a report outlining their initial findings regarding the nature of the spill, and what steps they were taking to ensure the safety of the nearby citizens and wildlife.

The report claims “the release of the VOCs had no effect on nearby neighborhoods or residents due to the fact that the chemicals dissipated so quickly into the air”, and that the sticky, black residue left on the road and plants “is not likely to be harmful unless one comes into direct contact with the material”. Any long term effect on the marshland was unknown at the time of the report, but biologists were expected to release results within the end of the week. (week of June 12th).

Nearly eight weeks later, the overall impact that the chemical spill had on surrounding East Palo Alto neighborhoods and marshlands is still largely a mystery. The EPA states that the tanker was carrying semi-volatile and volatile compounds, however according to Greg Baker of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration there is still no definitive list of every compound in the tanker at the time of the spill. According to Baker, the biologists’ primary focus has been determining where the released spray passed over and if any damages to plant or animal life occurred. Back in June biologists explored the marshes looking for any signs of impact such as dead fish or birds, and used an imaging fly-over technique to get aerial views of the affected marshlands, and determine to what degree the area had been affected. Biologists could find no signs of environmental distress or a lack of photosynthetic activity. In August a second round of fly-over imaging will be used to see if any previously undetected impacts arise.

This incident is not the first time Romic has threatened the health and safety of residents and the marshland. In 1995 Romic mistakenly released cyanide into the Palo Alto Wastewater Treatment Plant, and in 2005 Romic paid the state of California $849,500 to settle 53 safety violations, accumulated over the last 7 years.

Romic’s presence has caught the attention of the East Palo Alto activist group Youth United for Community Action or YUCA. Over the last few years YUCA has worked to raise awareness of the harmful effect Romic has on the community. Roger Madrid, a co-member of the group believes that Romic has no place in his community, “they handle chemicals that are known to cause cancer and asthma” and “we want them to leave”.

It is troubling that while the EPA has released a statement assuring the community that the people, plants, and animals within the vicinity of the Romic spill were not harmed, it is still unknown what was in the tanker that spilled. Furthermore, EPA has not addressed the possibility of long term effects that the released chemicals could have on the community and wildlife. The Romic toxic facility has a controversial history, located in an economically disadvantaged, ethnic minority community while receiving, storing, and processing toxic waste generated elsewhere. The facility’s presence immediately next to the Baylands raises both environmental concerns and community economic development concerns for why the facility should occupy a prominent Bayfront property. These concerns are longstanding, and Committee for Green Foothills will continue to monitor the natural resource protection issues that result in this area.

-Annie Ryan

Counties' right to regulate logging

Several weeks ago, the California Supreme Court issued fairly broad protection to counties attempting to regulate logging in their jurisdiction. It had been unclear whether state law superceded the normal right of local agencies to regulate land use. With additional clarity, there may now be reason and ability for counties in our area to restrict harmful logging practices.

The Supreme Court decision is here.

NBC11 video on Los Gatos Creek logging proposal

NBC11 did a short news report on a thousand-acre logging proposal in the Los Gatos Creek watershed that deeply concerns CGF. The news report is here, and our writeup of the problem is here.

-Brian

Stanford Trails

Below is a Letter to the Editor we sent in to the Mercury News and Palo Alto Weekly about Stanford University's recent announcement they are halting work on the Page Mill/S1 Trail.

-- Holly Van Houten, Executive Director

--------------------------------------------
Dear Editor,

As the former director of the Bay Area Ridge Trail Council, it was my great pleasure to attend Wednesday’s night of the Midpeninsula Regional Open Space District where a trail connecting Los Trancos Open Space Preserve to Palo Alto’s Foothills Park was approved. Together with the trail opened last fall linking Foothills Park to the Pearson – Arastradero Park, this new connection will create a significant piece of a long sought after regional trail linking the San Francisco Bay Trail to the Bay Area Ridge Trail when it is built later this year.

By way of contrast, Wednesday’s paper carried Stanford University’s announcement of stopping work on the Page Mill/S1 Trail (“Campus halts work on trail”) due to a lawsuit filed by my new organization, the Committee for Green Foothills. This is an unfortunate and totally unnecessary action that denies the community access to a trail they have been owed for 5 years, ever since Stanford got approval to add 5 million square feet of new facilities.

Our lawsuit addresses only the northern trail known as the C1 trail, a project that was included at the last minute without considering alternative alignments, studying environmental impacts, or considering the public’s comment. Our lawsuit simply asks Santa Clara County and Stanford University to follow the environmental laws on this trail. We’re asking for them to exercise good governance.

Even better if Stanford would decide to be a good neighbor. The University has the opportunity to participate in creating a great regional trail system linking the popular dish trails up to the City’s Arastradero park, providing the needed link in the Bay-Ridge trail connection, but that isn’t the choice they’ve made. It is time to do the right thing, follow the law, and create real recreational trails that will benefit Stanford and its neighbors.

Sincerely,

Holly Van Houten

Open Space Initiative and Letter to Mountain View

CGF sent out an Action Alert this week asking people to check out the website for the Open Space Initiative and to encourage Mountain View City Council to endorse the Initiative. Unfortunately, the City didn't make a decision this week after all, but we hope they'll endorse it in the near future.

Below is a short letter we sent in support of endorsement.

-Brian
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June 26, 2006

Mountain View City Council

Re: Item 4.17 on City Council Agenda - support for Land Conservation Initiative Resolution

Dear Members of the Mountain View City Council;

The Committee for Green Foothills and the other major conservation organizations in Santa Clara County have worked for over three years to improve the Santa Clara County General Plan through the Land Conservation Initiative, coming to a vote this November. We urge the City Council to endorse the Initiative as something that will improve the quality of life for all County residents, including Mountain View residents.

The Initiative will only affect unincorporated County land designated as Ranchlands, Hillsides, and Large-scale Agriculture. It will not affect city jurisdiction or the County lands bordering the north and east of Mountain View. Generally, it will limit rural subdivisions to levels similar to other Bay Area Counties, like Alameda and San Mateo Counties. It will keep development off ridgelines, protect our streams from inappropriate development, and preserve threatened wildlife. It does not apply to cities or to more developed rural areas. The Initiative preserves the areas in Santa Clara County that still retain the strongest rural character.

Just as Mountain View would participate in amending the County General Plan on other occasions, the City has every right and obligation to ensure that the quality of life in the County remains protected. Fighting sprawl outside City limits will also have important effects on air quality, water quality, and views experienced from within Mountain View.

Again, we urge you to support the Initiative, and we would be happy to answer any questions about it.

Sincerely,

Brian A. Schmidt
Legislative Advocate, Santa Clara County

CGF is suing Stanford over reneging on its environmental promises

Well, this has been in the works ever since last December, when Stanford and Santa Clara County took an action we described as "Disappointing, bad policy, and illegal." Instead of a promised trail to make up for Stanford's environmental impacts, the university pushed an expanded sidewalk in a different county that causes environmental impacts instead of making up for them. We've sued to stop that from happening.

Our press release is here.

Palo Alto Weekly's coverage is here.

The Mercury News coverage is here.

We'll be sure to keep you updated.

-Brian

11,000-acre ranch protected along south Santa Clara County

(Below is a guest posting by CGF Summer Intern Annie Ryan.)

On June 14th, Los Gatos-based Gabilan Ranch owners announced the sale of development rights to the Nature Conservancy for the "stunning" 11,190-acre ranch, located just south of the Santa Clara-San Benito boundary. In one of the largest land preservation arrangements ever to be completed in Northern California history, the deal ensures that the ranch will never be subject to any kind of development, even if the current owners decide to sell.

While just outside of CGF’s area of work in Santa Clara County, the ranch will contribute to maintaining a wildlife corridor shared by the County that extends from the Coast to the Central Valley. In addition, the selling of development rights has become increasingly popular among western ranchers afraid of losing their land to urban sprawl. Once the possibility of future development on a ranch is diminished, property taxes drop dramatically, making it more feasible for the land to stay family owned.

Click here to learn more about the land’s value and history.

-Annie Ryan

Master Comment letter on Coyote Valley Fiscal Analysis

CGF sent the additional letter below, following up on many previous comments on the Coyote Valley fiscal analysis. We sure hope that it gets a thoughtful response by the city.

-Brian
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June 6, 2006

Coyote Valley Specific Plan Task Force

Re: Master Comment Letter on Draft Fiscal Analysis for Coyote Valley

Dear Members of the CVSP Task Force:

Per the request by City staff for comments, the Committee for Green Foothills submits the following response that collect our previous concerns together, along with additional comments on the Draft Fiscal Analysis for Coyote Valley. We note that at the Technical Advisory Committee, staff and consultants appeared to support the CGF’s suggestion that a Final Report include any revisions made over time and include a Comments and Responses Section similar to that done in a Final EIR. We hope this will still happen.

Additional comments follow:

Consultant and staff response so far to CGF criticisms: the most important CGF criticism of the Draft Analysis finds the Draft’s assumption that housing costs can escalate 3% above inflation annually for 60 years, when household income increases much more slowly (less than 1% according to 1990s data), to be fatally flawed. The Draft concludes that a fiscal surplus will occur only because of this massive increase in property tax revenues, but that extent of increase will not happen. Instead, we believe it is not possible for housing costs to increase much in relation to household income, and that the Report should be revised accordingly.

The City’s consultants had two responses so far: first, the 3% figure is a conservative match for increases over the last 30 years, so it is appropriate to use the same figure for the next 60 years; and second, while an ever-smaller percentage of families could afford to purchase homes over time, that smaller percentage could still push the market price ever higher.

We consider these responses to be inadequate. First, the past rate of price increases is irrelevant when encountering a new factor – in this case, the cost of housing increasing to more than 33% of median household income. We believe the past trend is unsustainable, and an unsustainable trend cannot be maintained forever. The Draft Report contains no analysis of whether that past trend can be sustained; it just assumes the trend can last.

Regarding whether a smaller percentage of potential buyers can maintain the constant real rate of increase in housing prices, it would be useful to view the incomes of people potentially interested in buying residences in Coyote as a normal distribution/bell curve, where the largest numbers of people have mid level incomes, while smaller numbers have high incomes or low incomes. See Figure A, attached, for illustrative purposes (y-axis is the number of people/buyers, x-axis is their income level (the numbers on the x-axis are arbitrary here)). The vertical line intersecting the apex of the curve could help delineate the current potential market of buyers. San Jose staff have stated the average household spends 33% of income on housing, and banks are unlikely to give mortgages to people where payments would be much larger than that percentage. At current ratios of housing to income, then, potential buyers are the sum of the area under the bell curve and to the right of the vertical line.

The effect of increasing housing prices faster than income is to shift the vertical line further to the right, decreasing the number of potential buyers. And because the largest numbers of buyers in the bell curve are at the lowest income levels still to the right of the existing vertical line, moving that vertical line even slightly to the right will result in a disproportionately large reduction of buyers. Finally, the Draft Report implies a very large rightward shift in that vertical line to the right. All the above indicates a large decrease in the number of potential buyers given the Draft Report assumptions, but the Draft still concludes that prices will increase at the same rate as it did with a larger pool of buyers.

What the Committee for Green Foothills cannot do is quantify these numbers, but the City’s economic experts can. They should quantify how much the market will decrease given the relative changes in income and housing assumed in the Draft Report, and this would give a much better idea as to whether the housing prices can continue to climb at such an incremental rate.

Related housing price comments:

CVSP Task Force Member Craige Edgerton pointed out that Bay Area housing price increases don’t occur in a vacuum. When Craige moved to this area, housing cost twice as much as it did in Texas, and now it costs five times as much. This is another example of an unsustainable trend that the Draft Report may be assuming will continue for 60 years. City consultants should examine what is expected to happen in the national housing market – if that market is not also expected to increase at 3% above inflation, there should be an acknowledgement of that in an “Unrealistic Assumptions” disclaimer to the Final Report.

Craige also pointed out that even if the 3% figure is accurate, it could result in wrong projections if done at the height of a bull market. See Figure B, attached, as an example of how this could happen using an upward trending sine wave. The x-axis is time, and the y-axis is housing prices (absolute numbers on the axes are irrelevant for these purposes). The sine wave represents the up and down swings of the market, while the overall upward linear trend represents a gradual increase over time, which the City argues will average out to 3% or better. Craige’s point is that the 3% trend line could be drawn as tangent connecting the troughs of each curve, as a line bisecting the middle of all the curves, or as a tangent connecting the peaks of each curve. The most accurate starting point for extending the 3% trend line, in order to determine what future prices will be, would be from the middle. That does not appear to be what the Draft Report does, because the present position is much more likely to be at the peak, with an extended housing boom and what many are labeling a housing bubble in San Jose. To fix this, even if the City believes the 3% real rate is sustainable, it should begin its valuation with a partial correction (decrease in housing prices) factored in.

At a City Council Study Session, Councilmember Forrest Williams and City consultants referred to the Draft Report as intended to be conservative. To assist this goal of making conservative assumptions, we suggest the following: Assume at the beginning of the project that housing prices will drop the same extent as the greater of the last two drops in housing prices, which we understand to have occurred in the early 1990s and 1980s. Further assume that prices will for the next few years increase no faster than the worse-performing of the two subsequent recoveries, and increases will stay low as long as the slowest recovery took. Finally, assume prices will then increase no faster than the rate of median household income increase for the projected duration of the project. The Committee assumed household income would increase 1% based on 1990s data, but that may be overoptimistic, and City consultants may have better long-term data. The Final Report could include the above as an Alternative Assumptions that could be use for fiscal projections for the various scenarios.

Other comments:

The underestimate of affordable housing resulted in an overestimate of revenue. Twenty percent of 26,660 housing units in Coyote (the last number we’ve heard) is 5,312, not 5,000. This means that in all scenarios, 312 units were inaccurately counted as market rate units generating substantial property tax revenues, instead of affordable units generating little or no tax revenue. This error should be corrected.

Initial sale prices of affordable for-sale housing cannot be increased at the 3% real rate between the present and whenever the housing is constructed. When this question was asked at a Task Force meeting, consultants misunderstood it as a question about control of resale prices. The real issue is what value and property tax revenues the Draft Report assigns to affordable for-sale housing constructed say, 20 years from now. If it takes current affordable housing prices, and projects those prices to increase at a 3% real rate for 20 years, then any pretense that these future homes will actually be affordable is thrown out the window. Instead, the housing prices should be calculate based on expected income levels at the time of construction.

As mentioned in our earlier comments and reiterated here, none of the five scenarios included the most environmental of the action scenarios that we have discussed in the last year – retain the current triggers, and add some form of phased 2:1 jobs:housing concurrence thereafter. This would keep the advantage the current triggers have of prioritizing in-City development first, while avoiding an “open floodgates” problem with current triggers – after 5,000 jobs arrive, housing development can far outpace jobs development. We recommend that this scenario be added to the Final Report.

Also as mentioned earlier, all the concurrency scenarios have a “cannibalism” problem that has not been addressed in the Draft Report or anywhere else. The 2:1 ratios create a potential incentive whereby Coyote developers will offer cut-rate prices to business to relocate there away from central San Jose, because those developers will then make large amounts of money off the 2:1 right to construct housing that was created when the jobs moved. San Jose needs to address this problem in multiple contexts, but it could start in the Draft Report by reducing tax revenues to reflect cannibalized business tax revenues stolen away from central San Jose.[1]

This letter incorporates and requests responses to previous oral and written comments from the Committee for Green Foothills, especially the April 24^th and May 8^th letters and attachments, and the Excel spreadsheet distributed at the last Technical Advisory Committee. If City staff have trouble locating these items, we can provide copies.

Finally, there is one idea that could fix ALL the criticisms we have of the Draft Report. Following up on an idea from the Sierra Club, the Final Report should explore making the Community Financial Districts a permanent means to make up the budgetary shortfalls from Coyote Valley, as opposed to a temporary means used only in the project’s initial years. If 20 years from now it turns out that Coyote is actually withdrawing more revenue than it brings in, the CFDs can rectify that situation with some kind of property assessment, maybe as a smoothed-average over several years to avoid dramatic assessment changes. Coyote Valley developers will presumably have no problem with this idea, as they are quite confident that after ten-plus years, Coyote will always deliver a fiscal surplus to the City. In that case, the CFD need never draw funds from Coyote Valley landowners. As it is, an uncertain level of risk remains that Coyote will not benefit the City. If Coyote Valley developers continue to assert that the risk is zero, then they should have no problem with it being transferred from the City to them.

Please contact us if you have any questions.

Sincerely,
Brian A. Schmidt
Legislative Advocate, Santa Clara County

[1] A partial fix of the cannibalism problem would be to use large concurrency increments – say after each 5,000 new jobs, 2,500 residences can be built. This would substantially reduce the incentive to relocate jobs from Central San Jose, and could be used appropriately for the environmental scenario outlined above.

Figure A:

Figure B:

Coyote Valley Farmland Mitigation Comments

CGF has submitted many comments to San Jose about preserving nearby farmland. Below is one of our comments submitted in relation to Coyote Valley on June 1.

-Brian

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Dear Sal,

I hope the City of San Jose can accept these somewhat-belated comments on potential Agriculture Mitigation in Coyote Valley. The Committee for Green Foothills stands by the joint letter previously submitted by environmental groups on the subject, as well as all oral comments we have submitted to date.

We would like to add two more items for consideration. First, an appropriate, additional use of fees exacted from developers who convert farmland to other uses is to provide a price preference for local agricultural products. This would make up the damage done to local agriculture due to the decreased size of the local farming market, so it would be an appropriate mitigation, not an unfair exaction. More information is available here:

http://www.greenfoothills.org/blog/2004/08/agricultural-preservation-versus.html

Second, Committee for Green Foothills suggests that an idea that might facilitate acceptance of farmland conservation easements in the Coyote Valley Greenbelt would be to make the easements transferable in the event of annexation of the Greenbelt by an adjoining city. This might get rid of the disincentive for Greenbelt landowners who believe annexation is possible, and therefore believe that accepting an easement on their land would them prevent them from having more intense development allowed under annexation. The easement could be transferred to another appropriate farm in Santa Clara County that is as close as possible to the Greenbelt. The landowner would have to pay to get another landowner to accept the transferred easement.

Details of this second idea would have to be worked out. It may not even be feasible at all, but it is at least worth investigating. We suggest the City consult with the group FROG during the process of developing its policy, given that FROG has spent the most effort working out a viable Greenbelt strategy of its own.

Please contact us if you have any questions.

Election Day tomorrow

Tomorrow (Tuesday) is Election Day, so people should remember to go out and vote!

Committee for Green Foothills is a non-partisan organization, and we don't endorse candidates. We do encourage people to examine the environmental issues in any particular race, however, and keep those in mind as part of the voting decision.

The San Jose mayoral race is particularly important - the five front-runners will be whittled down to two candidates (unless one candidate gets an absolute majority). It is no secret that environmentalists have had a difficult relationship with San Jose's current mayor, so any change is a new opportunity to establish a much better relationship.

I've had the privilege of talking at least briefly to all five mayoral candidates, and I can safely say that they all appear to be intelligent and hard-working people. Their environmental views can vary depending on the topic. I would encourage San Jose voters to look at those views - on Coyote Valley, the Open Space Initiative, on protecting green spaces, on "smart growth" generally, and on all the many other, important environmental issues, as part of making a well-informed vote.


-Brian

Milpitas UGB - getting things straight

Santa Clara County LAFCo's map of the Urban Service Area for Milpitas doesn't match the restrictions that voters put in place in 1998. LAFCo met this week and postponed action to bring their map into conformance, but we hope it will happen soon. This will help clarify that sprawl is not allowed past a certain point. Our comment letter is below.

-Brian
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May 25, 2006

Santa Clara County LAFCo
70 West Hedding St, 11th Floor, East Wing
San Jose, CA 95110

Re: LAFCo Meeting of May 31st, Agenda Item #5 – Milpitas Urban Service Area

Dear LAFCo Commissioners;

The Committee for Green Foothills supports the recommendation to finally make the Urban Service Area coterminous with the voter-approved Urban Growth Boundary. The eight years since the voter approval of Measure Z has been more than enough time to update the USA.

An indefinite delay at this point would only further circumvent the voters’ intent. Orderly planning and environmental protection, two major components of LAFCo’s mission, require the end of these delays.

Sincerely,
Brian A. Schmidt
Legislative Advocate, Santa Clara County

We are here

Click here, and click on the white box, and that's where Committee for Green Foothills is located.

Wikimapia is a new project allowing people to add notes and comments to a global map.

-Brian

Supporting Water District independence

We sent the following letter in support of separating some leftover connections between the Santa Clara Valley Water District and Santa Clara County government, changing them from semi-separate to separate agencies. Both agencies wanted the change, and it should make accountability clearer.

-Brian
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May 15, 2006

The Honorable Joe Coto

California State Assembly

State Capitol Room 2170

Sacramento, CA 95814

Subject: Notice of Support for AB 2435 (Coto): Santa Clara Valley Water District

Dear Assembly Member Coto:

The Committee for Green Foothills supports your AB 2435 to amend the Santa Clara Valley Water District’s (District) enabling act (Act). Our organization agrees with the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors and the District Board of Directors that the existing arrangement no longer serves the interests of the County, the District, or more importantly the voters, residents and businesses of Santa Clara County. Your bill would specifically remove the County Board of Supervisors role in approving the District’s budget and appointing District Board Members.

AB 2435 will ultimately reduce costs to taxpayers and allow the voters to hold their elected officials directly accountable for decisions relating to water resources. Your bill will also make the District’s composition and budgetary process conform to that of other independent special districts throughout the state.

Our organization is very pleased that you have agreed to author this legislation, which was developed collaboratively by the County and the District. We are pleased to add our name to the list of supporters for this bill.

Please contact us if you have any questions.

Sincerely,

Brian A. Schmidt

Legislative Advocate, Santa Clara County
cc: SCVWD Board of Directors, Fax: (408) 266-2897
Julie Maclay, Santa Clara Valley Water District, Fax: (916) 448-8499

Preserving farming near San Jose

At the May 15th Environmental Issues Forum for the 2006 San Jose Mayoral Candidates, an event cosponsored by CGF, candidate Michael Mulcahy suggested that some sort of preference should be given to locally-grown food. The Committee for Green Foothills suggested a similar idea last year, and showed how new development could be required to help provide that preference in order to mitigate the loss of farmland in our area.

We hope that Mr. Mulcahy, and everyone else concerned with local farms, continue to pursue these ideas.

-Brian

CGF Political Breakfasts

With the wonderful support of the Peninsula Community Foundation, the Committee for Green Foothills was able to put on two "Political Breakfasts" where community members could talk with two respected community leaders about environmental issues. Below is a brief write-up on the Breakfasts, and we intend to add more information to other parts of the CGF website.

-Brian
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Political Breakfast: “Ethnic Diversity and Environmental Opportunity”, Tuesday April 4^th, with featured speaker, Santa Clara County Supervisor Blanca Alvarado. Supervisor Alvarado talked about the importance of environmental issues to all communities, regardless of ethnicity. She referred to the statewide problem of the “fiscalization of land use” where governmental land use decisions do not further the interest of the represented communities. She discussed the proposed Santa Clara County General Plan Initiative to reduce sprawl and protect watersheds, modeled after a similar voter initiative in San Mateo County, and indicated she would likely endorse the Initiative. She discussed how Initiative supporters could get support from ethnically diverse communities by conducting outreach to churches, community centers, and non-English newspapers. She discussed how technically-challenging policy positions, such as CGF’s legal analysis showing inadequate legal compliance on restricting the increased paving-over of the County, could be tied to flooding issues with press releases and press conferences that would be read in ethnically-diverse communities. Supervisor Alvarado made recommendations for key people to contact in the Hispanic community

Following the meeting, environmental groups agreed to continue with outreach and set up a subsequent planning meeting in May.

Political Breakfast: “Water Rights and Water Wrongs: Lessons in water protection from an environmental perspective,” Tuesday, April 25^th, with featured speaker Santa Clara Valley Water District Board Member Rosemary Kamei. Board Member Kamei discussed the history of the Water District and how few people understood that the Peninsula and South Bay still derive an extensive amount of their water from local groundwater sources. She discussed how groundwater overdrafting has caused serious problems and how the Water District has attempted to address them. She emphasized the success water conservation has had in recent years, keeping water demand nearly flat even as population has substantially increased in the County. She pointed out the global problem of climate change could have local environmental effects by increasing flood potential from increased sea levels and inadequate levees along the Bay, as well as reducing water supply. She emphasized the need for greater participation by the public on environmental issues. She discussed the importance of protecting local open space in the context of the County General Plan Initiative, but has not yet decided whether to endorse it. Other elected officials in the audience, Larry Wilson of the Water District and Jim Foran of the Open Space Authority, added their comments.

Board Member Kamei challenged environmentalists to increase public participation in water protection, and suggested environmentalists turn each April into an “Environmental Awareness Month” that culminates in Earth Day. Many audience members participate actively in environmental organizations, and following up these suggestions will be an important next step. The legal issue of impervious surfaces paving over the County was also discussed as one that will be further pursued, especially as CGF first analyzed this issue through a Water District Grant, and has had further opportunities to publicize it at Political Breakfasts sponsored by a subsequent grant from Peninsula Community Foundation.

PCF was expressly mentioned and thanked for its sponsorship at both Political Breakfasts, and in supporting materials.

More about Coyote Valley fiscal problems

Last week, we gave San Jose a copy of the previous blog post on the problem of unrealistic fiscal assumptions used to make Coyote Valley fiscally responsible, together with the short letter below.

-Brian

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May 8, 2006

Coyote Valley Specific Plan Task Force

Re: Draft Fiscal Analysis for Coyote Valley assumes housing prices will increase faster than income indefinitely

Dear Members of the CVSP Task Force:

The Committee for Green Foothills submitted comments last month on the Draft Fiscal Analysis for Coyote Valley. Please see the attachment that details the reason why a major expense – housing prices – cannot forever increase at a faster rate than the increase in income. The attachment shows that if annual housing expenses started at 33% of household income and increased at 3% annually, as assumed in the Draft, while San Jose household income increased at 1% annually, then after 11 years the housing expense would rise to 40.7% our household income. Clearly, any long-term assumption that housing prices will exceed income is not a conservative assumption as claimed by City staff, but rather the expression of “bubble” economics.

We further note that 1,000 housing units are designated as “affordable” for-sale units. A 3% appreciation rate of future new affordable units, even where deed restrictions govern resale prices, will quickly remove these newly-constructed units out of the “affordable” range. San Jose must adjust the fiscal analysis or acknowledge they will not meet the affordable housing targets.

Please contact us if you have any questions.

Sincerely,

Brian A. Schmidt

Legislative Advocate, Santa Clara County

The problem with extending a trend forever

The Draft Coyote Valley Fiscal Report has a problem with extending a trend line indefinitely. It says that housing prices will increase at a rate of 3% above inflation indefinitely, for 50-60 years. This results in a similar increase in property tax receipts, which is then used to claim that Coyote will result in a fiscal surplus for San Jose.

However, the report makes no prediction for increases in median household income. Fortunately, we found useful data here: income rose 10% over 10 years, or slightly less than 1% annually. You might see the problem already - if income increases more slowly than a major expense - housing - that expense can't keep increasing at the same level indefinitely.

I need to find someone more versed in Excel than I am, but I tried to calculate how it would turn out. Assume average housing costs of 33% of income, which is probably reasonable for San Jose. To simplify numbers, assume an average household income of $100,000, increasing 1% annually, and housing costs of $33,000, increasing 3% annually.

End of Year 1: housing costs $33,990, income is $101,000 and housing now is 33.65% of household income. Interesting. Let's do that for 10 more years:

(calculations show costs of housing if it increases 3% above inflation each year for ten years)

Year 1: 33 + (33 * .03) = 33.99
33.99 + (33.99 * .03) = 35.0097
35.0097 + (35.0097 * .03) = 36.059991
36.059991 + (36.059991 * .03) = 37.1417907
37.1417907 + (37.1417907 * .03) = 38.2560444
38.2560444 + (38.2560444 * .03) = 39.4037257
39.4037257 + (39.4037257 * .03) = 40.5858375
40.5858375 + (40.5858375 * .03) = 41.8034126
41.8034126 + (41.8034126 * .03) = 43.057515
43.057515 + (43.057515 * .03) = 44.3492405
Year 11: 44.3492405 + (44.3492405 * .03) = 45.6797177

At year 11, divide $45,679.7177 by $112,000 (should be very close to household income appreciating 1% annually), and you get housing costing 40.79% of income, up from 33% ten years earlier. And the fiscal report thinks this can continue for 60 years. I think it can't - I don't even know if it could continue for eleven years.

-Brian

To the person who left the anonymous tip yesterday

We'd be interested in more information on both matters, especially the second one. If you want us to use only some information and keep confidential the rest, we can do that.

-Brian

Everyone's writing about Coyote Valley

It seems to be on everyone's mind. Over at Sanjoseinside.com, "Single Gal" switches from discussing the dating scene in San Jose to lamenting how Coyote Valley backers are ready to turn San Jose into "Becoming Los Angeles".

At Loma Prieta Sierra Club, they've sent a letter about the fiscal report for Coyote Valley development that shows a significant deficit in the first 10 years. The letter says "Our primary concern is how fiscal mitigations will compete with environmental mitigations. The environmental impact of the proposed project is huge and the cost to mitigate is not insignificant." CGF shares this concern.

And not be outdone, we sent in our own letter on the fiscal issue, reproduced below.

-Brian
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April 24, 2006

Coyote Valley Specific Plan Task Force

Re: Comments on the Draft Fiscal Analysis for Coyote Valley

Dear Members of the CVSP Task Force:

The Committee for Green Foothills submits the comments below on the Draft Fiscal Analysis for Coyote Valley. While our comments focus on the specifics of the analysis, we must not forget the central issue involved in Coyote Valley – that it’s a developer proposal to convert crucial farmland to unneeded office space, while making our housing situation worse. The “alternative scenarios” that attempt to launch housing first while waiting for jobs later just defeat the central purpose of this project, while doing nothing about the ultimate problem of making the housing situation worse. Analyses of issues like finances cannot overcome this central problem, that developing Coyote Valley would be an unnecessary mistake.

Our comments include the following:

The analysis excludes considerations of costs to other agencies funded by San Jose taxpayers. For example, providing health care services to uninsured people in Coyote Valley will increase costs for Santa Clara County, and approximately half of the County taxpayers are San Jose residents. Costs to VTA and school districts have also been overlooked.

Keeping triggers while adding 2:1 concurrence was not analyzed. For the last year, environmentalists said that a carefully managed 2:1 match of jobs to housing would be appropriate AFTER the 5,000 jobs trigger was reached. This would keep the housing matched with jobs so people living in Coyote would be more likely to be working there, and establish an appropriate policy that the City should not develop farmland when it doesn’t have to. This would be the most environmental scenario short of not developing Coyote, but was never analyzed.

Negative fiscal effects from “cannibalizing” retail sales away from San Jose were omitted. The figure of 1.6 million square feet of retail needs to be justified relative to 15.7 million feet for office space. A large figure for retail creates suspicions that the figure was used to improve the fiscal picture for Coyote. This creates two risks: first, that sales will not reach the assumed level, and second, that some of the sales will result from retail businesses relocating from San Jose to Coyote, or from customers who would have otherwise purchased retail products in San Jose. The 25% net benefit stated in the report (Draft at 35) needs to be justified in light of these issues.

Negative fiscal effects from cannibalizing office space were omitted. Over the last year, Committee for Green Foothills has pointed out the risk that the concurrency scenarios would subsidize businesses to locate or relocate away from San Jose and into Coyote. Enough businesses locating at Coyote will mean that high-profit housing can happen. A Coyote Valley developer that owns both residential and office zoned land (or two developers working together) has an incentive to significantly undercharge the costs of office space in Coyote so they can profit off the resulting housing market. The fiscal effects would be to reduce tax revenue from elsewhere in San Jose, as well as many other negative economic impacts to the rest of San Jose. These effects need analysis and are more likely unless concurrency is carefully managed, so that large job-creation triggers in place to deter this strategy. Scenarios 1 and 4 are particularly risky.

Assumptions about property tax revenue are unrealistic. The analysis relies heavily on steadily increasing property tax revenue to achieve an eventual surplus, and it has three flaws: first, the 20-year trend line used to justify a post-inflation real growth of 3% annually is skewed by the significant housing bubble over the last 5-10 years. If one made a similar analysis of 20-year trends for the NASDAQ market from 1980-2000, the result would have no resemblance to the current market. Incorporating a bubble into your fiscal analysis is a mistake.

Second, no comparison is made between the 3% growth figure and median household income increases in San Jose. The Draft should obtain the figure for household income in San Jose – it would be surprising if the post-inflation figure kept up with 3%. We suggest the City ask any economist whether the percentage increase in the cost of housing can substantially exceed the percentage increase in household income for 60 years.

Third, no market correction analysis was conducted, to consider realistic worst-case scenarios if the housing bubble bursts. A fiscal analysis should be done to determine the revenue scenarios assuming a substantial drop in housing prices, a period of stagnation, and then a return to a steady rise.

Present value of the $1.2 million annual costs for lake maintenance should be calculated. This is a lot of money that could be spent elsewhere, and the lake area could be used primarily for athletic fields and secondarily as flood storage, eliminating the stated need for playing fields north of Tulare Hill. City staff had previously told us that the commercial amenity value of the lake would exceed its cost; this statement needs justification.

Details on housing can better define the extent that Coyote Valley will worsen our housing crisis. While not a criticism of the Draft, we note that Table 5 (Draft p. 21) breaks out the numbers for each housing type and persons per household. Rather than use the County average of 1.7 employed persons per household, this breakdown could be used to figure out how many employed people will reside in Coyote, contrast that to how many people will be induced to work there, and then determine what is the net increase in housing demand. We additionally note that the figure of 52,000 jobs in Table 4 seems like a significant underestimate compared to past estimates of non-industry leading jobs that will be generated as a result of construction in Coyote Valley.

These are just initial comments; we have had little time to review the document. We hope to send additional comments later.

Please contact us if you have any questions.

Sincerely,

Brian A. Schmidt

Legislative Advocate, Santa Clara County

Those who don't examine history...

We have asked Santa Clara County to investigate whether Stanford repudiated its earlier offers of a trail alignment on the south side of campus to establish leverage over the County. So far the County is not interested in examining this issue. I don't believe that "no" is an acceptable answer, because we have no wish to repeat potential mistakes from the past. We'll have to see if the County agrees with us.

-Brian

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April 6, 2006

Marina Rush
Santa Clara County Planning Department

Request for staff investigation regarding the S1 Trail approval process and staff recommendations for the future planning involving Stanford

Dear Marina:

I regret that I will be unable to attend tonight’s meeting, but I would like to suggest a topic to be reported on at a future meeting. The topic is an investigation of whether Stanford University placed a new condition in September 2005 on its offer of the S1-C trail alignment, a condition that Stanford had not acknowledged in spring 2003 when Santa Clara County rejected the community groups’ S1 trail alignments and bifurcated the S1 and C1 planning process. The new condition that concerns us was Stanford’s refusal to accept the S1-C alignment that Stanford itself had offered, unless the S1 decision be delayed to accompany development of a C1 EIR, or unless the County also accepted Stanford’s proposal that the Alpine Road sidewalk immediately become the designated alignment for the C1 Trail. The investigation should determine what was the written record showing what conditions, if any, Stanford placed on its offer of the S1-C alignment in spring 2003, what Santa Clara County staff’s perception was of whether Stanford had conditioned its offer in spring 2003, and what community groups perceived Stanford’s offer to be in spring 2003.

The purpose of this investigation would be to determine whether recommendations are needed in the future for dealing with any other offers that Stanford makes as part of the General Use Permit compliance process. Regardless of where one stands on whether Stanford reneged on its offer as of spring 2003 and placed new conditions on the S1-C alignment, the investigation can determine whether there is a need for better clarity as to when Stanford has made a firm offer and what are the terms of that firm offer. In the alternative, better clarity will allow parties to understand whether Stanford is simply floating a proposal that it may choose to revoke or change with no notice, and reliance on such a proposal is completely at the risk of Stanford’s revocation or modification.

We further recommend that the investigation determine whether to develop a standard “Stanford University Acknowledgment of Detrimental Reliance” form. Such a form, if signed by Stanford, will indicate whether Stanford considers itself legally bound by a particular offer.

The Committee for Green Foothills would be happy to help in the investigation and development of a standard “Stanford Detrimental Reliance” form. We further note that we raised this question originally in our comment letter for the December 13, 2005 Supervisor’s meeting (attached).

I apologize again for not being there tonight. If the CRG wishes to agendize this for discussion at a later meeting before making a recommendation for County staff action, that would be fine.

Please contact us if you have any questions.

Sincerely,

Brian A. Schmidt
Legislative Advocate, Santa Clara County

Unusual SUV ads

These amateur-created SUV commercials will probably not be adopted by the company (warning: vulgar language).

Get out and walk is always good advice, as is preserving open space so we have decent places to walk to.

-Brian

Morgan Hill ignoring the effects of losing farmland

Morgan Hill is considering establishing an Urban Limit Line, a second line that shows where long-term growth will occur outside of the current Urban Growth Boundary.

As stated in our comment letter reproduced below, City staff isn't taking seriously the environmental effects of losing the farmland. We hope the City Council decides differently.

-Brian

(one other note: after submitting the letter below, I re-read the original document and realized I had misunderstood the section discussing "Black Rock," so in my oral comments, I asked the City to disregard that one paragraph in my comment letter)

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March 28, 2006

Kathy Molloy-Previsich, Community Development Director
Community Development Department
City of Morgan Hill
17555 Peak Avenue
Morgan Hill, CA 95037

Dear Kathy:

The Committee for Green Foothills submits the following comments on the Mitigated Negative Declaration (MND) for the Urban Line Limit and Greenbelt Study General Plan Amendment and Related Actions (ULL). We understand from communications between City Consultant David Bischoff and Michele Beasley of Greenbelt Alliance that comments submitted today would be considered timely.

The Committee supports the comments submitted by the Greenbelt Alliance in its March 27^th letter. These comments state that it is reasonably foreseeable that establishment of the ULL will ultimately lead to a conversion of farmland. In fact is more than reasonably foreseeable, it is quite obvious. The MND itself states “the implementation of Part A could lead to eventual conversion of farmland within the ULL area, since the nature of establishing a ULL boundary is to provide an envelope for future development.” MND at 45. The MND then incorrectly states this possibility is speculative. It is not – rather, it is the clear intent and purpose of establishing the ULL. Where the MND states the “nature” of establishing the ULL is to outline future development, that is really the end purpose of the project, and if this purpose is not even a remotely foreseeable possibility, there would be no reason to include it as the major component of this project.

Furthermore, the cumulative impact of this new designation for land as bounded by the ULL together with future actions to annex and convert away from farmland the parcels within the ULL is reasonably foreseeable as a cumulative impact. From a practical viewpoint, it should be clear to City Staff and the Planning Commission that landowners within the ULL will seek annexation when possible, and will loudly trumpet the fact that they are inside the ULL as an additional reason for their annexation to proceed. This cumulative impact is foreseeable, and must be addressed.

We agree with Greenbelt Alliance that a feasible mitigation measure of 1:1 ratio for permanent farmland preservation to compensate for lost farmland should be included in this project. We wish to add that while farmland preservation can feasibly reduce the impact of farmland loss, it cannot reduce that impact to a level of insignificance. As the Greenbelt Alliance letter makes clear, California is losing farmlands at a significant rate, and such a loss can only be slowed, not stopped, by agricultural preservation. Therefore, a Negative Declaration is inadequate for this project, and the City cannot legally approve this project without preparing an Environmental Impact Report.

For the same reason, the conversion of farmland in the Black Rock subarea, which the City acknowledges is a “real” impact, cannot be mitigated to a level of insignificance through agricultural preservation, and also requires preparation of an EIR.

Please contact us if you have any questions.

Sincerely,

Brian A. Schmidt
Legislative Advocate, Santa Clara County

Let the sun shine in - improving disclosure requirements

The Mercury News has a series on the need for better disclosure of government operations in San Jose. They asked for reader comment, and we sent in the email below.

-Brian

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Dear Mercury News editors:

I'm very glad to see this effort by your newspaper to increase disclosure and "sunshine" in government operations. In our work as an environmental organization involved in local land use issues we have seen two specific disclosure problems in our field. The first is general, and the second is specific to San Jose.

The general problem is the shift by governments from distributing environmental documents from paper form to electronic form, either downloadable from the Internet or sent out as CDs. While electronic distribution is fine as an addition to paper distribution, the public no longer gets a paper copy of EIRs in increasing numbers of cases. It's extremely hard to cross-reference information in electronic-only format. This change reduces the public's ability to use the information, or it forces us to spend our own money printing out documents that are the responsibility of the developers who apply for permits.

A better solution is to continue to make paper versions of EIRs and other environmental documents available to those who request them. A nominal fee of several dollars would discourage people from requesting documents that they don't actually need. This costs taxpayers nothing in most cases, as it is the responsibility of developers to pay for the costs of environmental review.

(As an aside, the electronic documents should also be in searchable formats, like Word documents. The Adobe PDFs that are usually used often cannot be searched, in whole or in part. Agencies also often post the EIRs broken up into many different chapters, which can be extremely annoying to download. They should add the option of downloading the entire document at once.)

The second, San Jose-specific problem is its retention of the archaic and biased system that allows developers to prepare the preliminary version of environmental documents that may then be adopted by San Jose as its own documentation. While technical reports or architectural drawings may be appropriately prepared by an applicants' experts, Draft Environmental Impact Reports require judgment and analysis that should belong to the agency, not a biased developer.

Handing developers control over preliminary documents creates two disclosure problems. First, even the City does not know what went in and what was left out of that preliminary document - effectively, the practice means San Jose is hiding information from itself. Second, the City loses the ability to disclose preliminary documents and information that developers fail to turn over. While San Jose may not be obligated to turn over this information on request, if San Jose prepared it instead of developers, it would have the option to do so if it chose. Developer control of preliminary documents hides information from the City itself, and from the public. No wonder that most jurisdictions in the Bay Area have abandoned this developer-controlled process.

There are other disclosure problems, but these two are clearly among the most important.

Sincerely,
Brian Schmidt

______________________________________
Brian Schmidt
Santa Clara County Legislative Advocate
Committee for Green Foothills

Stanford's sidewalk proposal, and our response

Stanford's proposal to expand the Alpine Road sidewalk is out, and can be viewed here. No big surprises, but plenty of hints remain that the "poison pill" that Stanford inserted, giving it control over San Mateo County's review of alternative trail locations, will be firmly enforced. Welcome to Stanford's concept of environmental review.

Actually, giving Santa Clara County Parks Department control over changes is interesting. Looks like a future exercise of discretionary power to me, meaning Santa Clara County would have to do the environmental analysis they've tried to avoid. Maybe they'll continue avoiding it though.

We drafted our response in advance, printed below.

-Brian
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March 6, 2006

Dear Members of the Town Council and Board of Supervisors;

We understand that Stanford University has submitted an application to the Town of Portola Valley and to San Mateo County to widen the existing sidewalk along Alpine Road (the incorrectly labeled “C1 Trail”). We recommend that the Town and County both reject the application. Expanding the sidewalk will have significant environmental impacts to the riparian environment along San Francisquito and Los Trancos Creeks, while doing nothing to increase the recreational value of the sidewalk. Residents of the Town and County are much better off if this proposal does not go forward. Under that circumstance, the money will then be spent on providing recreational opportunities in Santa Clara County expected to be close enough to the County border to attract significant numbers of San Mateo and Portola Valley residents.

The Alpine Road sidewalk expansion fails to serve the public interest, even at the most basic conceptual level. In addition to that central problem, some crucial details will likely make Stanford’s proposal even worse. First, Portola Valley and San Mateo County should not take any financial liability for a project that is solely the responsibility of Stanford University. The Town and County should require Stanford to sign an unlimited indemnity provision, including for stream engineering and all liability related to future upkeep of the trail, rather than transfer Stanford’s responsibility to the taxpayer. Because Stanford has only proposed to spend a limited amount of money, it is unlikely to fix this problem.

Second, while Stanford will likely claim that it will pay for agency staff time spent on that proposal, this cost recovery will presumably not occur until some process has been agreed upon between the two governments and Stanford. The Town and County should not take a single step forward with this proposal until Stanford clarifies that it will pay for all of the initial staff time taken up to decide whether the project should be considered or rejected outright. Given the complication of achieving true cost recovery, however, a better approach is to simply not spend any staff time, and reject the proposal out of hand.

Third, based on Stanford’s experience bullying Santa Clara County into ceding control to Stanford over the range of alternatives considered in environmental analyses, we anticipate the same problem will arise for the Town and County. We doubt that Stanford will acknowledge that it has no control or veto power over the environmental documentation needed for the examination of Stanford's proposal. In particular, Stanford will not acknowledge that it cannot veto the location of alternatives to be considered by those two jurisdictions, a power Stanford has asserted in the past in Santa Clara County. Without this acknowledgment, Portola Valley and San Mateo County should simply refuse to take further action. Please note that Stanford's interpretation of any commitments has been highly legalistic and cramped in Santa Clara County, so there should be careful analysis of exactly what Stanford acknowledges.

Fourth, in the 2000 General Use Permit, Stanford committed to maintain the C1 trail, but no maintenance was mentioned in the agreement it signed with Santa Clara County in December last year. Stanford’s failure to include long-term maintenance (presumably foisting the cost on to the taxpayers instead) would be yet another reason to reject its proposal.

Fifth, Portola Valley and San Mateo County should be aware that Stanford likely views its offer as subject to change or withdrawal without notice. Stanford exhibited this behavior with regards to the S1 Trail on the other side of Stanford’s land. To avoid a S1 Trail alignment it disliked, Stanford proposed a different S1 alignment called the S1-C (Ramos Ranch) alignment. Santa Clara County went along with Stanford, refused to consider superior alignments, and after two year of contentious environmental review, the County planned to accept Stanford's S1-C proposal. At that point, Stanford placed a new condition on its offer that it had not required previously, essentially making the S1-C alignment available only if Santa Clara County agreed to do what Stanford told it to do on the C1 Trail. We would not be surprised to see similar behavior by Stanford regarding the Alpine Road sidewalk.

To be clear, the problems listed above only make a bad proposal worse. Even in the unlikely event that all five issues were resolved, the best outcome would still be to reject the proposal so the money will be spent on something that actually mitigates Stanford’s impacts on land uses. We request that San Mateo County and Portola Valley reject this proposal, and we further request to be kept informed of all developments.

Please contact us if you have any questions.

Sincerely,

Lennie Roberts

Legislative Advocate, San Mateo County

Brian A. Schmidt

Legislative Advocate, Santa Clara County

Lois Crozier Hogle

I just came back from attending the memorial service for Lois Crozier Hogle, a founder of the Committee for Green Foothills. The Palo Alto Weekly wrote about her here, and we will have our own article in our forthcoming newsletter.

The service was moving, and the large Presbyterian church in Portola Valley was packed. What struck me most during the service was her daughter's observation that Lois "gathered friends like she did flowers, with both arms wide open." I'm sure that packed church held only a small portion of the friends she gathered over the years, in a life that could not have been better spent.

-Brian

The Open Space Initiative has a website

Santa Clara County's Open Space Initiative (endorsed by Committee for Green Foothills) has a webite, Openspace2006.org. They even have a blog! It's a moderated blog, but anyone can post to it, so please take a look and consider becoming one of the bloggers.

The website and blog are just getting started, but I expect they'll be providing plenty of information over the next few months.

-Brian

The CGF family takes wing

Some great news about people associated with us here at Committee for Green Foothills: Zoe Kerstenn-Tucker, CGF Board Member and former Executive Director, has been appointed to the San Mateo County Transit District Board, where she will do a great job of protecting the public and advocating for smart growth.


Meanwhile, Velma Gentzsch, CGF's former Associate Director of Development, will be the Executive Director's Executive Assistant at the Save the Redwoods League.

It's great to see these developments!

-Brian

More golf course trouble in Morgan Hill

Apparently, the private, illegally-constructed golf course in Morgan Hill is raising additional controveries. (Background on the golf course is here.) The golf course is now being promoted as a potential PGA tournament location.

The Institute Golf Course is not permitted to have tournaments, and the parking issues would likely conflict with the area's agriculture. The golf course has not kept up with its commitment to improve on site environmental problems and to purchase habitat offsite to compensate for the illegal habitat destruction done on the property.

Morgan Hill shouldn't even consider a permit until the golf course comes into compliance with its requirements, and should look very skeptically thereafter at any application.


-Brian

Some good Coyote Valley news

From the Mercury News: mayoral candidates "stressed that the city cannot build housing there before finding businesses to put jobs into the northern section of the valley. Otherwise, in their view, the city will worsen its tax revenue shortage by having too many houses and too few jobs."

An Op-Ed from Audubon's departing advocate Juliana Chow summarizes many of the project's current problems.

And the Merc's own editorial says it would be "ridiculous" to subsidize industry to get it to move to Coyote. That's entirely right, and it's also what would be the end result of some proposals to remove the current safeguards in the City's General Plan.

-Brian

Happy World Wetlands Day!

Well, I didn't know it was World Wetlands Day either, but time to celebrate it nonetheless. The Ramsar treaty provides international support for wetlands protection, part of a growing recognition of their importance.

One way we can act locally to recognize their importance globally is to protect our wetlands. Santa Clara County refuses to protect wetlands that are not protected by the federal Clean Water Act, something we believe is blatant violation of the California Environmental Quality Act and possibly other state laws. Fixing this problem would be a good step forward, and we're watching for a chance to do exactly that.

-Brian

Waiting for a fix-up of Coyote Valley planning

San Jose City Council met last night to discuss Coyote Valley, and CGF has sent out an Action Alert asking for true mitigation for the proposed loss of farmland, for a replacement person to fill the vacant environmental position at the Coyote Valley Task Force, and for disclosure of any secret deals made over Coyote Valley.

We're glad to report that Councilmember Forrest Williams has already stated that he is unaware of any secret deals, and we thank him for stepping forward.

-Brian

Car dealerships dominating Palo Alto Baylands?

Palo Alto has made car dealerships a permitted use on East Bayshore Road, the side road that runs between Highway 101 and the Baylands. While the use will likely occur only upon already-developed land, this decision raises the possibility of giant, gaudy, overlit dealerships creating visual impacts on what is currently a mostly-natural viewpoint enjoyed by thousands of people on the highway, not to mention the actual users of the Baylands.

We at CGF will watching any actual applications for dealerships very closely.

-Brian