MorganHillTimes.com | San Jose Mayor Ron Gonzales leads push for full-scale development of Coyote Valley area

San Jose Mayor Ron Gonzales leads push for full-scale development of Coyote Valley area

Aug 19, 2005
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San Jose - Homebuilders are getting ready to dig up Coyote Valley.

In an about face from Coyote's historical development triggers, San Jose planners are now exploring funding the massive infrastructure needed on the city's southern edge with residential, rather than commercial development.

"We could see houses in two or three years," said Santa Clara County Supervisor Don Gage, who also sits on the Coyote Valley Specific Plan task force. "If that's what they want, there are developers ready to go. They're rushing this thing forward."

As envisioned by the specific plan, Coyote Valley is supposed to be a transit-oriented, pedestrian-friendly community of 25,000 homes, 50,000 residents and 50,000 jobs. Planners say it will take at least 30 years to reach full build-out and don't expect a significant number of new jobs in the area until at least 2012. But in two weeks, the task force will forward to the San Jose City Council a recommendation that may include sacrificing the historic jobs-first triggers for a plan that would allow immediate residential development, with or without job growth.

"The way the project has been envisioned for many years is to start with jobs," said Darin Smith, a consultant hired by the city. "That is possible, but the timing is questionable at best."

Smith, of Economic & Planning Systems, in Berkeley, said he isn't advocating a policy position, but his conclusion that housing fees and taxes alone could raise the estimated $600 million needed for initial infrastructure is based on the city acting quickly to exploit the hot real estate market.

"If the city council and task force want to have development happen sooner rather than later, there is an opportunity created by the residential market to produce revenues supported by development," Smith said. "If it's not a priority, then they can wait until market conditions change. Certainly there have been periods in Silicon Valley when the commercial market was a lot stronger than it is now."

Smith's proposal is the latest development in a growing movement to accelerate growth in Coyote. San Jose has had designs on the area since the 1970s, but even earlier this year planners said major development was still a decade away. In February, San Jose planner Laurel Prevetti said that Coyote was in line behind a number of other development priorities.

"The triggers are historical and there because we felt we had a lot of capacity within existing areas, what we call in-fill development. We want to focus our growth downtown and along transit corridors," she said. "The concept of Coyote Valley as an urban reserve meant we wouldn't consider expanding the city until the triggers were in place."

But in May, San Jose Mayor Ron Gonzales and Councilman Forrest Williams floated a memo that advocates reworking the triggers to jump-start Coyote development. As outlined in San Jose's general plan, Coyote Valley development is contingent on the city having a five-year forecast of balanced or surplus budgets, a stable economic relationship with the state and 5,000 new jobs in north Coyote.

"I always felt that the triggers were put there to placate people," Gage said. "There's no reality to the triggers. If you paid attention to the triggers, you'd never build anything, and that's not an option. The choice is which development do you like best?"

The Gonzales memo suggest replacing the jobs trigger with a rule that allows one new house for every two new jobs and loosens density requirements. Smith's plan goes a step further, calling for at least 5,000 new home to be built up front, followed by a concurrent phasing of jobs and homes.

In the current environment, he said, those homes would finance a "sense of place" critical to attract employers to Coyote. Within three years, development fees and property taxes could pay for transit, environmental improvements and the road construction needed to create a town center, at a cost of $327 million. The infrastructure would be nearly complete after six years.

"By not providing amenities, you might be delaying even further the creation of jobs in Coyote Valley," Smith said. "We think the mixed-use, highly amenitized community would be a more attractive location for jobs than exists now."

Task force members greeted the proposal with wary enthusiasm. Gonzales and Williams asked for more financial information, and expressed concern that if jobs never materialize in Coyote, the housing will become an economic burden.

"You've really got to convince me you've got this covered," Williams said. "I've seen too many of these where something wasn't considered [and it ruined the plan]."

Developers were less cautious. Steve Speno, of Gibson Speno, spoke to the importance of economic development in Coyote, but said the city will benefit by moving quickly to develop there.

"It's better to get more in place sooner rather than later because it's only going to get more expensive," Speno said. "Momentum will create momentum. Investment will generate future investment."

Kerry Williams, president of the Coyote Housing Group, a consortium of developers that is paying for the planning process, said Tuesday that the time has come for city leaders to take concrete steps to realize the Coyote Valley vision.

"If the goal is to achieve the plan of a mixed-use, vibrant, dynamic environment, a big commitment of funding is needed early in the process," Williams said. "The longtime city policy has created a catch-22. You can't build housing without jobs, but you can't attract jobs without housing. If the 5,000 job trigger policy holds, it will be a long time before anything happens in the valley and it will be very difficult to achieve the scale of the plan."