ZH I'bnniiig neccmbcr 2001

A giant new developme^^Js om the books in San Jose

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Welcome to the who's who ofhigh tech. Along U.S. 101between San Francisco andSan Jose, in what is hiniouslyknown as Silicon Valley,

gleaming office towers bear the names eBay,PayPal, Oracle, Sun Microsystems, Adobe,McAfee. A short detour into Mountain Viewleads to the campus of Google, the search enginefirm, while a quick side trip to Cupertino endsup at the birthplace ot the PowcrBook and theiPod—the sprawling headquarters oi Applecomputers.

As tbe freeway continues past downtovv'nSan fose and heads south, the setting changesdramatically. Structures are tew—houses, barns,motels, the occasional produce stand, and scat-tered light industrial buildings.The main attrac-tion here is the rolling, yellow-green foothills otthe Santa Cruz Mountains and the seeminglyendless acres of still-active farmland.

Amid this bucolic landscape sits CoyoteValley, a 7,000-acre stretch just north of thetightly packed suburb ofMorgan Hill. Plannersdesignated the valley, located 12 miles southof downtown San Jose and one of the city'slast remaining undeveloped areas, as a futuredevelopment site in a 1984 general plan update.Under California law, the designation means

that development in Coyote Valley must beguided by a specific plan, adopted after publicinput and task force review.

For more than two decades, Coyote Val-ley remained largely rural, residential, andrecreational, wbiie the rest of San Jose changedgreatly. In 1980, thecit>-had 630,000 residents.Today, spurred by Silicon Valley software andInternet firms, the city's population has swelledto904,'i22, according to the most recent censusestitnates, making San Jose the nations 10thlargest city.

F.ven before the census figures came out,the city was looking to Coyote Valley not onlyto accommodate population growth but alsoto build a stronger commercial and industrialbase. "We've been tbe bedroom community fordecades," says Laurel Prevetti, deputy directorof the city's Department of Planning, Buildingand Code Enforcement. "Now we're seeing thattbe jobs are slowly starting to come closer to SanJose."Tbe Association of Bay Area Covernments,tbe area's regional planning agency, predicts thatSan Jose will gam almost 114,000 new |obs overtbe nexr two decades.

It was the prospect of those jobs—and thetax base that would come from new commercialdevelopment—that prompted the city to beginthinking in earnest about developing Coyote

Valley, h'iveyears ago, the planning com missionand the cit)' council approved a proposal by CiscoSystems, a networking firm headquartered inSan Jose, [o build a new 680-acre campus innorth Coyote Valley. IBM's Almaden ResearchCenter already has a facility there; Adobe, eBay,and other higb-tech firms are located elsewherein San Jose.

The city also recognized the need to plan fora growing population. ABAC estimates that SanJose's population will grow to 1.14 million by2020, and a residential market analysis recentlyconducted for the city predicted a demand for66,000 new housing units.

An economic downturn prompted Ciscoto shelve its expansion plans. Nevertheless,in niid-2002. Mayor Ron Gonzalez and tbeSan Jose city council decided to go ahead withpreparation of tbe Coyote Valley Specific Plan. Afinal plan package, including zoning measures,design guidelines, and an environmental impactreport, is scheduled to be submitted to the citycouncil next spring.

Walrli whiit yoi} ui>li I'oi*Two decades ago, tbe phrases "smart growth,""new urbanism,'" and "transit-oriented develop-ment" had yet to enter tbe planning lexicon, butSan Jose's planners and ciry government were

Ametican Planning Asiotiatlon 29

T/ie plan for San Jose's Coyote Valley envisions a free-standing, transit-oriented community with 25,000 housing unitsand 50,000 jobs, to be built 12 miles south of downtown in one ofthe city's few remaining undeveloped areas.

ahead ofthe curve in promoting these concepts.Even then, they expected Coyote Valley devel-opment to be far different from both the area'ssprawling office park conglomerations or thetract-^stylc neighborhoods of Morgan Hill, abedroom suburb south of San Jose.

The city's 1984 general plan tipdate stipulatedchatCoyoteVaJIcydeveiopment should create an

"independent commtinity with jobs, housing,commercial taciHties, schools, parks, and otherresidential service facilities, infrastructure andpublic transit—in effect, a new town." The planenvisioned "a very urban, pedestrian- and transit-oriented mixed use community" buffered by a3,600-acre greenbelt to the south, where in the1970s the city had instituted an urban growthboundary under then-mayor Norman Mineta,nowU.S. secretary of transportation.

Today, as that new town comes closer toreality, local planners hold up the Coyote ValleySpecific Plan as a model for smart growth andsustainable development on a greenfield site.

Preliminary estimates from the planningdepartment predict an overall density of 21residents pet acre, with at least 25,000 housingunits on the site's 3,400 developable acres. Theplan also calls for creating at least 50,000 jobsin the 3,400-acreNorth Coyote Industrial Areaand Mid-Coyote Urban Reserve over the next20 years. (The Mid-Coyote Reserve is in SanJoses "sphere of influence" and would have tobe annexed by the city once the specific planis approved.)

Twenty percent ofthe housing units wouldbe deed'testticted, to be sold or rented at below-market rates and, except in areas where single-family detached housing is already the norm.

townhouses and other more compact housingtypes would be encouraged.

"We're looking ptimatily at mostly higherdensity forms of housing," Prevetti says. "Thisis not going to be your basic suburban sprawl."She notes that a form-based zoning code, designguidelines, and other guidance to be submit-ted along with the specific plan will help to"make sure we get the quality of communitywe want."

Interspersed with the housing will be schools;commercial, civic, and recreation facilities; andother community amenities, all joined by a net-work of open spaces, trails, bicycle paths, and aparkway. Roads will be laid out in a traditionalgrid system. The focal point of the develop-ment, as the plan currently stands, will be an80-acre park and waterway system, includinga 50-plus-acre manmade lake, which will serveas a drainage basin as well as a recreational huband aesthetic feature. All municipal projectsmust follov '̂ green design principles, and greenbuilding elements will be encouraged in otherbuildings.

Planners envision a fixed-route bus systemthat would link Coyote Valley residents andworkers to a proposed Caltrain commuter railstation nearby. In the future, the system couldalso link to the city's light rail line, which cur-

30 Planning December 2005

What's there today: Farmland and the rolling foothills of the Santa Cruz Mountains dominate the 7, OOO-acre landscape of Coyote Valley. Nearly half thearea is being targeted for development.

rentlyends two miles north of the valley.Tbrougb tbe purchase of development rights

and other similar mecbanisms, the 3,600 acresknown as South Coyote Valley, extending toMorgan Hill, would remain open space inperpetuity. There, Prevetti envisions babitatpreservation projects, groundwater rechargeareas, and a wildlife corridor. "'We're tryingto marry smart growth with environmentalpreservation in a way that creates a new wayof living—healthy lifestyles and that sort ofthing," she says.

hy tho iiiiiiihi'rs

The planning department estimates infrastruc-ture costs at $ 1.6 billion, none of which wouldbe assumed by tbe city. Planners are workingwitb the 19-member task force to determineappropriate financing mechanisms, which couldinclude a community financing district, bondfinancing, developer contributions, and fees.

The city's general plan sets specific thresholdsthat must be met before housing developmentcan begin in Mid-Coyote Valley. First, 5,000 newjobs would have to be added in North Coyote(in addition to the 2,000 jobs already provid-ed by IBM). Second, the city's fiscal conditionmust be stable, based on a five-year econom-ic forecast. Possible changes to tbose develop-ment "triggers," wbich would allow housing tobe built sooner, have been the subject of recentmeetings of tbe specific plan task force.

Task force participants include ciry andcounty government officials, developers, envi-

ronmentalists, a Coyote Valley property owner,a labor representative, a retired planner, anda member of tbe Morgan Hill school board.I'he co-chairs are Ron Conzales, mayor of SanJose, and San Jose city council member ForrestWilliams. Tbe group consults witb a technicaladvisory committee that includes representativesof various city and county interests, includingtbe Santa Clara Valley Transit Authority.

City officials bave not stinted on publicoutreach to help shape and, ultimately, sell theCoyote Valley plan. In addition to making everydocument associated with the planning processavailable on the city's website, tbe planningdepartment sends out a bimonthly, full-colornewsletter with updates on tbe planning process.Community meetings are run by a professionalfacilitator. "We've tried to reach out to a broadbase of advocates and otber interest groups justbecause we know there are so many stakehold-ers," Prevetti explains.

Among those stakeholders is the Greenbelt Al-liance, a regional environmental group that in2003 published a counter-plan called Getting ItRight: Preventing Sprawl in Coyote Valley. Someof the suggestions outlined in tbat documenthave already been adopted by tbe task force,including erasing the demarcation between tbeNorth Coyote industrial area and the CoyoteValley urban reserve to enable mixed-use projectsto be built tbrougbout the developable portionof tbe site.

Unlikeotherenvironmental organizations inthe region, including tbe Committee for GreenFoothills and local chapters of the Sierra Cluband Audubon Society, tbe Greenbelt Alliancedoes not oppose development in Coyote Valleyoutrigbt. Rather, the group hopes tbat the finalspecific plan will bear its mark.

"It makes more sense to work witb [tbe ciryand task force] and make sure that what comesout of this development is truly a smart growtbcommunity," says Micbele Beasley, the alliance'sSouth Bay field representative. She says she isencouraged that tbe task force has proposed tosubmit an abbreviated version oi^ Getting It Rightto tbe state as an alternative plan, a requirementof the environmental impact review process.

Sbe finds recent talk of changing the devel-opment triggers worrisome, however, and fearstbat tbe SI.6 billion infrastructure price tagcould eat up funds that could otherwise be usedto subsidize affordable bousing and promoteeconomic diversity in tbe valley.

"We want to make sure that this afford-able bousing IS for people with extremely lowincome and very low income," she says. "Wewant to make sure it really targets people whoare barely getting by. There needs to be afford-able housing for all the people who work inCoyote Valley."

Beasley says ber organization is especiallyworried about tbe costs associated with themanmade lake and would like to see tbe cityconsider less expensive methods for drainagecontrol. Tbe proposed street and transit systems

American Planning Associaiiun 31

are also problematic, she adds, hecause they donot link the several distinct subdivisions plannedtor Mid-Coyote Valley.

"Each neighborhood has a grid street system,hut the neighborhoods themselves are discon-nected from each other," she says. "We wouldlike to see the entire footprint be one grid systemsimilar to what you would see in New York orSan Francisco."

Beasley also objects to the plan's relianceon a proposed new Caltrain stop, especiallysince the commuter rail provider has recentlydiscussed cutting service south of San Jose. ThetJreenbeltAlliance suggests adding a dedicatedbus route. "There's no guarantee that there'sgoing to be a Caltrain station if they're havingbudget problems," Beasiey says.

But Beasley's biggest concem is the task force'srecent talk ot changing the Mid-Coyote Valleydevelopment triggers to allow housing to bebtiilt betorethe 5,000-job threshold is reached,In August, the preliminary results of a recentstudy conducted for thecity by Economic andPlanning Systems ot Berkeley were released.They predict that early housing developmentcould produce the revenue needed to pay forintrastructure and attordable housing.

Beasley tears that removing the thresholdwould lead to tlie traditional suburban-styledevelopment the city claims it doesn't want.'From the Greenbelt Alliance's perspective.

the very real danger here is that Coyote Valleycould turn into another sprawling bedroomcommunity and we'll have an area filled withsubdivisions and you'll need a car to drive to everyarea," she says. Prevetti insists that this "phasedconcurrency" would do the opposite, facilitat-ing the type of community the city would liketo see. "That way you're creating a mixed-usecommunity from day one," she says.

A harsher critic is Brian Schmidt, legislativeadvocate for the Committee tor Creen Foothills,a 40-year-old environmental organization fo-cused on land preservation in San Mateo andSanta Clara counties. Schmidt, a member otthe technical advisory committee, worries thatthe city will allow Coyote Valley to be built upbetore there is sufficient demand.

Schmidt questions the rationale for creatinga new town, and, unlike Beasley, he seeks tohalt, or at least postpone, development therealtogether. "The idea that it's needed goes backto the dot-com boom and the idea that therewasn't space in San Jose for jobs," he says. Heasks if it might not be better to hold off on thespecific plan until the need is clear.

In tact, a market analysis conducted for thecity last year revealed that there are currentiv1.4 million square feet of vacant oftice space indowntown San Jose and another 2.1 millionsquare teet of vacant office space elsewhere inthe city.

The n ' s |nms( '

Prevetti responds that, because North CoyoteValley is already open to commercial develop-ment, a specific plan must be created now toensure sustainable development down the road."The reason why we're doing the planning nowis to essentially create more of a mixed-use com-munity so that when the economy does comeback to life we've got an approach and a planto really guide that mixed-use development,"she says.

Moreover, she says, attracting businesses toSan Jose means offering a variety of real estatescenarios. "From a job perspective, we feel it'sreally important to have choice. We have somecompanies that definitely want to be in down-town San Jose. We have others that love the northSan Jose high-tech culture. We have others thatprefer our bioscience area. And then we havecompanies that are going to be more interestedin the greentield option," she explains.

Schmidt is also concerned that the develop-ment will not be truly self-sutificlent (and, thus,sustainahle) because C^oyote Valley's housingneeds have been improperly calculated. The cit)''shousing needs estimates are based on the numberof white-collar positions projected, and do notinclude service-industry jobs. "They're sayingthey're doing all this smart growth planning, butthey're not planning tor al! the people who won'tbe able to find housing there," he says.

Ken Kay, of KenKay Associates, a planningconsultant working with the city on the plan,disagrees. Coyote Valley could create a "newparadigm" tor greenfield development, he says."There are regional ramifications, local ramifica-tions, even international ramifications."

Michcle Beasley is also optimistic that com-promise and collaboration could yield exemplaryresults. "It would be great if it could become amodel for greenfield development not only forother projects in C^aJitornia but tor other projectsaround the country," she says. "If we can get agreat smart growth community out of this, thatwould be a success."

Kristin Palm is a freelance writer in San Francisco. Sheholds a master's degree in urban planning from WayneState Utiivcr.sity.

IBM (abuvt:) and CitLO Syitiun already huuc hudl jacdnlti in ilh' norlhern pan of Coyote Valley. Ifthe specific plan for Coyote Valley is approved, additiomil new development would go there and in theMid-Coyote Reserve, which the city would annex. South Coyote Valley would remain in open space.

Online. Coyote Valley Specific Plan: www.sanjoseca.gov/coyotevaJley. Creenbelt Alliance report:www.greenbelt.org/downloads/regions/southbay/coyotevalleyspecificplan.pdf. Committee forGreen Foothills: ww\v.greenfoothills.org.