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

Fixing problems with Santa Clara County Williamson Act

Santa Clara County is attempting to allow landowners to switch from Williamson Act contracts (tax breaks designed to protect agriculture) to Open Space Easements (tax breaks designed to protect open space). We and the state Department of Conservation are concerned that the switch will just become a loophole for development. CGF proposed the following changes to the County Supervisors.

-Brian

Committee for Green Foothills’ suggested changes to provisions allowing exchanges from Williamson Act Contracts to Open Space Easement (OSE) Agreements

January 18, 2006

1. Because the law requires the OSE Agreements to be no less protective than the Williamson Act, we prefer that no Williamson Act restrictions, including prohibitions on development without agricultural use, be removed during the first 9 years after the exchange. Adding tighter restrictions to an OSE is permissible under the law, but subtracting the agricultural use requirement that would otherwise be in place, even for a 9-year transition period, raises concerns that the process becomes a means for escaping Williamson requirements. Keeping all restrictions does not eliminate the value of the Williamson Act exchange to an OSE. The landholder, in contrast to non-renewal, would secure the OSE tax advantages during the time period when the Williamson Act tax advantages would rapidly disappear. This fulfills the state legislature’s purpose in allowing exchanges between the two land use arrangements.

2. Short of the conservative approach described above, the County must show that it is getting some meaningful new development restriction not present under the Williamson Act if it is giving up a restriction that is present in the Williamson Act.

A. The “no development” OSE and “less than 1000 square feet” could be reasonably found to have met this test.

B. The “5% maximum” (presumably excluding subsurface and roads) may not.

C. If the property applying for exchange to the “5% maximum” OSE is too small to be subdivided, we suggest an additional planning step. The county hires a qualified assessor-consultant at the applicant’s expense to determine the assessor’s estimate of the likely value of the land with and without the OSE. The County will use the information to help determine whether the OSE represents a meaningful new restriction on development. A fee would be charged for this process. This process would not be necessary for land entering into an OSE that is new, as opposed to being exchanged from the Williamson Act.

While County staff suggest that development restrictions alone may be meaningful, the County Supervisors need some method for assessing that issue. If the County Supervisors believe the land value assessment can help them conduct a reasoned analysis of what the County gets out of the exchange to the OSE, they should consider including this step.

Urban coyotes

Seed magazine has an interesting article, "Wild Coyotes Move to the Windy City", discussing a six-year study of urban coyotes in Chicago. Apparently the coyotes play a useful role controlling the rodent, geese, and deer populations, although they get into garbage and pet food, and presumably kill pet cats and dogs as well.

The study suggests some reason to be concerned about potential danger to people, as coyotes become less and less afraid of humans. On the other hand, they were no confirmed coyote attacks on people during the six-year study, while 15,000 dog attacks occurred. It seems possible that if coyotes kill or drive off wild or semi-wild dogs, they may actually reduce attacks on people.

Coyote control has been an issue in south San Jose as people express fear of increasingly bold coyotes. I expect the issue will arise again.

-Brian

Coyote Valley news

San Jose Mayor Ron Gonzales has resigned from the task force designing the Coyote Valley Specific Plan. This is likely to be good news, as Mayor Gonzales' influence has been disappointing - always in the direction of more development, way too soon. Hopefully the City will slow down now and consider other options. On the other hand, the task force is still heavily weighted in favor of development, so we'll just have to see if there are any real changes.

A task force meeting was yesterday. Attached below is a letter we sent on the need to do sufficient mitigation for lost farmland.

-Brian

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January 9, 2006

Coyote Valley Task Force

Dear Members of the Coyote Valley Task Force;

The Committee for Green Foothills makes the following recommendations for the agricultural land mitigation strategy options:

1. The agricultural assessment discussed in the city's agricultural land conservation and mitigation memo should be done now, in the Specific Plan EIR process, and not at some later point as the memo appears to imply. The decision to convert the land from agricultural uses to other uses will be taken at the time that the Specific Plan is approved (if that happens), even though the actual conversion waits until later. There is therefore no reason to wait in doing the agricultural assessment. Any waiting would constitute illegal segmentation of the environmental analysis. Furthermore, the assessment of the land’s agricultural value looks in part upon the use of adjoining parcels. If this agricultural assessment and development is done in piecemeal fashion, then at some midway point, the piecemeal loss of Coyote Valley farmland will be used as an excuse to claim that the remaining agricultural lands in Coyote Valley have no agricultural significance.

2. The city should not alter the LESA agricultural assessment by allowing exceptions where land rated at a score of greater-than 39 points could be converted away from agriculture without being deemed a significant loss. The city's justification for this on page 4 of its memo states that the General Plan goal is to avoid "premature" conversion of agricultural lands, with the implication that when it is "mature" then conversion is not significant. This is an improper environmental analysis. The loss of agricultural land is either significant or it is not, and whatever goals are considered for the use of that land subsequently do not matter. Those goals are only relevant for deciding whether other overriding considerations outweighs the significant environmental impact. In other words, whatever goals that the city has with a project does not change whether the impacts of reaching those goals are significant.

3. The four strategy options may give an unintentionally misleading impression that the city is equally free to choose between the different options. Environmental analysis does not work like that. Either an impact is significant or it is not, no matter what the city may wish. Furthermore, CEQA requires that the city adopt any feasible mitigations for impacts that are determined to be significant.

· If preservation of agricultural land is a feasible mitigation for the significant loss of agricultural land, the city has no choice - it must go ahead and impose preservation requirements. We believe that the "no change" Strategy Option I fails to meet legal requirements as established in recent case law cited in our letter to the city, dated July 1, 2005 (part of the Task Force packet). Therefore, this option is not available to the city as a legal choice.

·We can see no credible analysis concluding that a preservation of less agricultural land than the land that is lost to be something that reduces the impact to a less-than-significant level. Therefore, Strategy Option II is also not a legal option.

·If the city believes that Strategy Option III is available to it, the city must explain why preserving land at a ratio of 1:1 or greater is not feasible. Absent a fully-adequate explanation, Strategy Option III is not a legal option. Given the availability of farmland in and near to Coyote Valley, we do not believe the city can justify this option.

4. The city must acknowledge that instead of adopting overriding considerations, it can also choose to reject the project. Such acknowledgment is missing from the city memo.

Please contact us if you have any questions.

Sincerely,

Brian A. Schmidt

Legislative Advocate, Santa Clara County

Joint position on Coyote Valley Farmland Conservation

We submitted the document below to San Jose today.

-Brian

(And Happy New Year, everyone!)

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Principles Regarding Farmland Conservation in Coyote Valley

January 4, 2006

The Friends of the Coyote Valley Greenbelt, The Sierra Club, Loma Prieta Chapter, Committee for Green Foothills, Greenbelt Alliance and the Santa Clara Valley Audubon Society are all organizations concerned with smart growth, sustainable land use and preservation of open space. We believe that the following farmland conservation principles must guide any proposals for the future of Coyote Valley:

Require mitigation for converted farmland

· Since developers propose converting Coyote Valley farmland to other uses, the developers must mitigate the lost farmland by funding the preservation of farmland on at least a one-for-one acre basis.

· All developed properties should be subject to the mitigation requirement, regardless of the subsequent use of the property. For policy reasons, some properties such as affordable housing may carry a lower share of the mitigation burden, but other properties must then make up the difference.

· Funding should be sufficient to acquire lands or easements for agriculture as well as a program of land/easement acquisition and management in the Greenbelt. The funding should also support programs to promote agricultural activities. The proposed $15 million is not adequate for these objectives.

· The mitigation requirement must be part of any Specific Plan for the Coyote Valley.

Where mitigation should occur

· To the extent possible, mitigation farmland should be secured in the Coyote Valley Greenbelt and other non-hillside lands within the San Jose Sphere of Influence.

· Should insufficient farmland be secured in these areas, only then nearby farmland in Santa Clara County would be considered appropriate mitigation for the remaining acreage.

· The South Coyote Valley Greenbelt is but one component of a true greenbelt. A protected valley floor including farmland protections along with protected hillsides creates a complete greenbelt. The Specific Plan must address plans to protect the hillsides from development.

An Implementation Agency should be identified or created.

· To assure long range viability and public accountability, the entity responsible for agricultural mitigation land acquisition or easements and related administrative support facilities should be a public agency.

·The Specific Plan must include guideline requirements for the agency, including a financial structure to hold funds until the agency is operative.

Our various organizations may have differing views on the future of Coyote Valley, and this joint position paper should not be considered a joint statement on whether development should occur in Coyote Valley. What our organizations share is the position that any specific plan that moves forward must include the preceding farmland conservation principles. Open space protection is a critical component of any smart growth specific plan. These principles focus on agricultural land conservation and do not represent the full suite of principles that should be incorporated into any Specific Plan for Coyote Valley, such as affordable housing, transit accessibility and hillside protection.

Acknowledging both sides of the Stanford trails debate

Copied below is a letter that the Committee for Green Foothills sent to the Palo Alto Weekly. The link to the online Weekly letter is here, and this was sent in response to a letter from Stanford University printed here.

-Brian
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Examining evidence

The community groups opposing the expansion of the Alpine Road sidewalk do not act like Stanford and ignore the evidence supporting the other side's position; we acknowledge it.

A single checkmark in one table of the 1995 Trails Master Plan indicates the relevant part of the C-1 Trail was "completed," and this is Stanford's entire argument (Weekly letter from Jean McCown, Dec. 16).

By contrast, the Trails Map created for the Master Plan does not show the C-1 Trail as complete, but it does show the trail in Santa Clara County (therefore not the Alpine Road sidewalk), and shows the trail as not being alongside a road. The Map conflicts with the checkmark -- one of them is wrong.

Because the 1995 Map was changed from the earlier 1982 Trails Master Plan and even from a 1994 draft version, the best conclusion is that in 1995 the county expressly rejected the Alpine Road sidewalk as the C-1 Trail, but failed to remove a single checkmark in one table.

Stanford is well aware of the 1995 Map and chose not to mention it in its Dec. 16 letter. Readers should remember this when reading Stanford's justifications of its environmental policies.

As for Santa Clara County, the decision to give up a real C-1 Trail and expand a sidewalk instead indicates that ignoring the public interest is less politically painful than holding a powerful university to its promises. The county might even be right -- it's up to the community to determine whether this action is acceptable.

Brian Schmidt, Committee for Green Foothills
East Bayshore Road, Palo Alto

Resolving some of the Stanford trail mysteries

Over the last week or two, we may have figured out some of the questions surrounding the extremely disappointing action by Santa Clara County in choosing an expanded the sidewalk along Alpine Road instead of a real trail in the Stanford foothills. So here are some questions:

Why did Stanford fail to support Supervisor Liz Kniss’ $11.4 million proposal to mitigate the recreational impacts from Stanford expansion elsewhere, instead of having an expanded sidewalk that is of little use? There are four possibilities.

Number one: Stanford truly believed that expanding the Alpine Road sidewalk is the best option for the community, and was willing to undergo the tremendous criticism it has received solely because it is looking out for the greater good. Okay, moving along then.…

Number two: even if fighting the Supervisor Kniss proposal provided no advantage to Stanford, they just want to win. While Stanford is intensely competitive, I think it is likely that they actually had some kind of ulterior motive and were not just fighting this proposal to show their power.

Number three: Stanford is trying to save money. Until recently, this was my favorite possibility for why Stanford acted this way - aiming to come to an agreement for doing minimal changes along the Alpine Road, and thereby have to spend much less than the $11.4 million they would have to give under the Supervisor Kniss proposal. While I still think this may play a role, Stanford has not shown much interest in saving money on any other land-use issue. Instead, they seem to be much more fixated in maximizing future development potential. So while this option is a possibility, the next option is what I think is most likely actual reason Stanford had.

Number four: Stanford wanted to kill the C1 Trail and never have it come back. I’d guess this is probably the real reason and the reason why they view the expanded sidewalk as better than paying an equivalent amount to recreational opportunities in Santa Clara County. If the expanded sidewalk is identified by Santa Clara County as the C1 trail, then Stanford expects it will never again have to fight with community groups over whether the C1 trail should run along the Stanford foothills, as it is shown to run in the 1995 Trails Master Plan Map. By contrast, if Stanford just paid the same amount of money to mitigating its recreational impacts, then the next time a new General Use Permit was under discussion, the C1 Trail alignment as potential mitigation for future Stanford impacts would come back onto the negotiating table.

So setting aside Stanford’s stated reasons, trying to kill a real trail and to kill it so it never comes back seems to be the most likely reason for the way Stanford acted.

Another question: why did Stanford say that the trail along the southern part of the foothills, the S1-C, would cost so much money? They said it would cost over $7 million even though the amount of work needed to be done to construct the trail would be far less than the amount needed for the extensive work required to build the Alpine Road sidewalk along a creek bed, let alone moving Alpine Road as planned for the C1 Trail. I would hesitate before accusing Stanford of an outright lie, but exaggerating and distorting the costs are possible. Why do it?

The answer might lie in Stanford's strategy of offering the S1-C alignment originally, and then taking it off the negotiating table at the right time. A letter from Stanford dated August 30, 2005, argues that the S1-C alignment is far more expensive then the S1-A alignment. In other words, Stanford implies the S1-C alignment is so incredibly generous that it is appropriate for Stanford to take that particular alignment off the table unless Santa Clara County does everything Stanford orders it to do on the C1 Trail. While this does not make sense in terms of matching Stanford's original, unconditioned offer of the S1-C Trail alignment, it appears to have been a successful negotiating tool for pushing the County around.

One question that is not yet answered: what would happen if Stanford reaches an agreement with San Mateo County and Portola Valley to do some type of construction on the Alpine Road Trail but does not end up spending the full amount of money that Stanford committed? It may still be possible that any remaining funds will get reverted back to Santa Clara County, but we are still trying to resolve the issue.

And a final question: what about maintenance? Stanford promised in the General Use Permit to maintain the C1 Trail, so where's the funding for that? Will the County let Stanford ignore that provision as well?

-Brian

"Disappointing, bad policy, and illegal"

Those are the words that I would use to describe the actions by Santa Clara County yesterday that have the effect of approving a sidewalk along Alpine Road. The article by the Mercury News is a good summary of what happened.

The County's action is disappointing for all the reasons we specified in the letter that we sent to the County that is copied in our previous blog post here. Supervisor Liz Kniss had proposed an alternative that would take the money that Stanford had said it is willing to spend on mitigation and use it for real mitigation somewhere within Santa Clara County in the vicinity of Stanford. Instead, money will be spent on a trail that is nothing more than an expansion of a sidewalk along a road that provides virtually no mitigation value for all the impacts Stanford's expansion has on recreational facilities.

Besides the core issue of prioritizing the building of an expanded sidewalk that is a bad option for the community, there are additional aspects of the deal that are bad policy. There is a "poison pill" in the agreement that effectively prohibits San Mateo County from considering an alignment outside of San Mateo County as part of the environmental review process. This handing of an environmental review control away from San Mateo County and to Stanford is something that could prevent the process from moving forward.

Finally, for the reasons we noted in our letter, this action is illegal. It violates the General Use Permit and makes the environmental decision to exclude the trail from Santa Clara County without any environmental review, as well as setting up a situation where virtually nothing could be done in terms of trail improvements for the C1 Trail, also without any environmental review.

The Committee for Green Foothills, other community groups, and the neighbors will have to decide what steps we may need to take next.

-Brian

UPDATE: There's a potential additional problem - the agreement may set up a scenario whereby if Stanford reaches an agreement with the different jurisdictions to do no more than token improvements on the Alpine Road sidewalk, then Stanford is free of all obligations, and the vast majority of the $11 million Stanford promised to spend would instead return to the university. Supposedly it's been fixed, but I'm not sure it has. The agreement says that if there's no agreement:

Stanford shall instead pay $8.4 million (as increased annually pursuant to the indexing mechanism in Section 4.e) or any portion of that amount that either was not paid to San Mateo by Stanford or was reimbursed by San Mateo to Stanford, to the County of Santa Clara

This is at least poorly written - what does the "any portion" mean if there IS an agreement? The possibility of losing the vast majority of the funding still seems present.

CGF position on Stanford Trails

The following is the letter we're sending today about Stanford trails.

-Brian

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December 13, 2005

Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors
County Government Center
70 W. Hedding Street, 10th Floor, East Wing
San Jose, CA 95110

Re: Agenda Item #57 – Stanford GUP relating to trails

Dear Members of the Board of Supervisors;

The Committee for Green Foothills opposes the recommendation of the County staff as completely unacceptable regarding the C1 Trail, although we have no objection to the S1 alignment. While the recommendation of County Supervisor Liz Kniss is not our preferred option, it is something we can live with. Our preference is that Stanford University simply do what it promised to do five years ago in developing a new trail on Stanford lands in Santa Clara County. Given the long delay that Santa Clara County has tolerated, Supervisor Kniss' suggestion that the recreational mitigation be constructed elsewhere appears to be a viable way to move forward.

We believe that the recommendation by County staff violates the Stanford General Use Permit and violates CEQA. The County Wide Trails Master Plan Map clearly shows the trail to be in Santa Clara County, as does multiple other pieces of evidence from the trails Master plan. There is a single checkmark box elsewhere in the Master Plan supporting Stanford's position, but since the two parts of the document are in conflict, we think the map shows a much better indication of what was actually intended.

County staff's recommended action would exercise County discretion by excluding the trail from Santa Clara County and by setting up a contingency where no trail could occur. These decisions have environmental ramifications and legally cannot be taken without prior environmental analysis.

We expressly reserve the right to litigate if the County follows the recommendation of County staff. We note that the recommendation by Supervisor Kniss would need limited environmental review and a General Use Permit amendment, but because this is a superior option to what County staff is recommending, we are not reserving the right to litigate if Supervisor Kniss’ proposal is followed today.

A significant improvement in the Supervisor Kniss proposal is that it would eliminate the possibility of no mitigation inherent in the County staff proposal. Inserting an amendment to the staff proposal with some type of monetary reversion to the County, should the Alpine Road sidewalk not be constructed, is inadequate for three reasons. First, the Alpine Road sidewalk expansion is a terrible “trail” that provides no significant recreational value – it should be rejected, not prioritized. Second, adding a reversion clause would mean adding seven years to the years of delay we have already faced. Third, Stanford will use community opposition to the Alpine Road sidewalk to reduce the changes to token modifications and thereby make only a token monetary contribution. A reversion clause will not fix the “token contribution” loophole.

While we believe it fits the intent of Supervisor Kniss’ proposal, we seek clarification that recreational facilities could include purchasing trail easements, and that the monies could be shared with other land use agencies within the geographic limit.

If Stanford opposes Supervisor Kniss’ proposal, we recommend the following:

1. Reject the County Executive’s recommendation.

2. Do not yet certify the Supplemental EIR for the S1 Trail, but prepare documents certifying the SEIR conditional upon Stanford’s written and unconditional proffer of the S1-C alignment.

3. If Stanford attempts to withdraw the S1-C offer, direct County Counsel to examine whether the County’s detrimental reliance on the S1-C offer means:

a. Stanford legally cannot withdraw the S1-C offer; and

b. Whether Stanford’s withdrawn offer puts it in non-compliance with the GUP.

4. If County Counsel determines that Stanford can withdraw the S1-C offer, direct staff to reinitiate the SEIR for the S1 trail to consider alternative alignments.

5. Begin the SEIR process for the C1 Trail. If Stanford refuses to pay for this process, find them in non-compliance with the GUP. Stanford must pay in advance, and has no control over the contents of the SEIR, including over alternatives to be considered.

6. If the Supervisors think they may want to accept the County Executive’s recommendation, defer any decision pending a written response from San Mateo County and Portola Valley regarding whether they are interested in the proposal.

Finally, regardless of any other action taken today by the Board of Supervisors, we are gravely concerned by Stanford’s placing additional conditions on the S1-C alignment that it did not make previously. The County relied on Stanford’s unconditioned S1-C offer when the County rejected alternative alignments supported by community groups. We urge the Supervisors to refer to County Counsel/staff the question of whether Stanford partially withdrew or otherwise added conditions to the S1-C offer that Stanford had not included originally, and recommend whether to develop a standard “firm offer” form for negotiating with Stanford, where Stanford acknowledges it is legally bound by the offer it has made.

Please contact us if you have any questions.

Sincerely,

Brian A. Schmidt

Legislative Advocate, Santa Clara County