June 29, 2007

Council members hold expanded session before July recess
to discuss compensation, development policies

By Carol Rosen
Staff Writer

It was another marathon session at City Hall on June 26 as council members dived through a number legislation before ending this fiscal year and taking off the month.

Among the top issues were salary increases for some employees, which passed, as well as a potential increase in the vehicle allowance for senior staff, which didn’t, and amending health insurance for employees registered in HMOs. The new general plan update was discussed along with plans for Coyote Valley and the Evergreen Development Policy, in which the council overwhelmingly voted to go for guidelines requiring jobs before housing.

Most of these topics also drew extensive public comment.

Evergreen development policy
One key topic discussed by the council in the evening session regarded changes to the Evergreen Development policy. The planning staff recommends updating the Evergreen policies. Its plan consists of an update of the environmental clearance and a transportation study conducted in August, followed by community outreach in August and September, bringing the new plan to the council in late fall.

The final recommendation, which passed unanimously, combines directions from a memo written by Vice Mayor Dave Cortese and Liccardo with suggestions from Reed. It included establishing a maximum allocation pool of 500 units to provide infill development of 35 units or less that bans “clustering” or other methods that would exploit the allocation process. Other directions include affordable housing projects, the Evergreen East Hills Visioning Strategies guiding principals and its amenities list and voluntary developer payments toward the share of the amenities and infrastructure packages.

As with Coyote Valley, the Evergreen plan incorporates the mayor’s suggestion of a jobs/housing ratio with jobs triggering housing development. However, the jobs trigger can include retail / commercial / office with the only exception being the addition of another supermarket in southeast Evergreen. The memo also directed the planning staff to develop a policy addressing future supermarket development of more than 20,000 square feet in that same area.

The planning staff indicated that using the pool units or smaller parcels could allow infill development with no traffic mitigation. This would mean that developers could build 25 units or less without severely impacting the already congested streets in Evergreen.

Cortese, whose council district includes Evergreen, questioned how this could be done because a policy allowing up to 1 percent could create significant traffic impacts, especially if more than one developer was building.

The council discussion centered on funding for traffic mitigation as well as jobs triggering housing, but a large number of residents each seemed to tell their own stories. Those living near the former Pleasant Hills Golf Course asked the council to consider leaving it as open space, while developers that own the property suggested it would still offer significant sums to allow development of the area. And a couple of residents asked council members not “to let money rush the process or “please don’t let them [developers] buy their zoning.”

One resident brought a petition that included more than 170 signatures from the area telling council members they were “going down the wrong road. To improve the quality of life future housing should not occur,” unless there is a job plan, a solution exists to eliminate traffic congestion, there is a solid plan for community centers, parks and trails and the impacts on schools have been determined.

Among the speakers was a representative for the Mirassou Trust. He urged council members to allow development in that area to fund historical preservation for the historical buildings at the winery location. He complained that vandals are destroying the building. (For more information on Coyote Valley, see page 24.)

Increased salaries
City Manager Les White devised a recommendation to amend the city’s pay plan by increasing general salaries by 3 percent, increasing the monthly car allowance for senior staff appointed by the city manager to $600 effective July 1 and amending the pay plan on July 1 to change the salary ranges and titles for the classification of the secretary to the city manager, emergency preparedness director and manager of public education and community information. The latter recommendation will not result in automatic salary increases. In addition, employees will absorb more of their health costs by increased co-pays.

However, Mayor Chuck Reed presented a memo recommending the 3 percent salary increase, effective July 1, but not the auto allowance. During the discussion, council members agreed with the mayor that the car allowance was unnecessary especially since the senior employees receive compensation for mileage following IRS guidelines.

In his memo, the mayor explained he thought the city should continue to explore the methods other large cities or agencies use to increase salaries, but he could not sanction increasing car allowances for appointees, based on the budget deficit.

“We have a structural budget deficit because our expenses are going up faster than revenues,” he said in his memo. “The solution is to reverse that relationship…The first and most important guiding principal is to focus on the cost of total compensation while considering the city’s fiscal condition, revenue growth and changes in the Consumer Price Index.”

The recommendation was voted on and passed by a vote of 10-1 with Councilmember Nora Campos voting against it.

General Plan update
Planning Director Joe Horwedel presented the General Plan update.

Envision San Jose 2040 is a long range-planning document designed to guide the city’s future growth and development. But it was the mayor’s recommendations that got the go-ahead with a vote of 10-1 with Councilmember Pierluigi Oliverio dissenting.

Reed recommended five actions. First he suggested the council adopt eight guiding principals, which council members confirmed on May 3. These include economic development, growth management, downtown revitalization, urban conservation/preservation, greenline/urban growth boundary, housing, sustainability and social equity.

His second action urged the council to approve a work program consisting of five separate tasks each encompassing a series of steps ending with alternative evaluations and selections followed by a council hearing.

The third step in Reed’s memo advocated that the staff finish work on the Coyote Valley Specific Plan and the environmental impact report “assuming existing prerequisite conditions and acknowledging that the General Plan triggers for development in Coyote Valley would be considered for modification only as part of the comprehensive General Plan Update. No one on the council supports changing the triggers.

The fourth step approves the staff-devised community participation program, consisting of a public workshop series and a public outreach plan. The workshops will be held at key points during the process. Each will include five workshops held in different areas of the city and will include young people as well as sessions for Spanish and Vietnamese speakers.

The public outreach plan is designed to reach all the city’s diverse communities. The staff plans to work with community leaders to get the public involved. The workshops will be advertised in local newspapers and through public service announcements on radio, TV and the San Jose public access channel. The plan also suggests working with the media to develop articles to increase public interest and participation.

Finally, the mayor suggests a task force comprised of San Jose citizens—two co-chairs, two council members, two city commissioners, 10 council district representatives and 18 community members representing business, neighborhoods, labor, land owners, developers, education, environment, ethnic and faith-based communities and other stakeholders—to carry on the work of the Coyote Valley Task Force.

Fourteen members of the public spoke out, a number against any development in the Coyote Valley due to wildlife and open space preservation. Others encouraged another EIR for the area, saying the current one doesn’t take into account the loss of wildlife or the 880 heritage trees in the area.

A lively council discussion ensued, mainly centered on the current triggers—50,000 jobs are necessary to build 25,000 housing units. Some council members like Sam Liccardo and the mayor, expressed concern about weakening the triggers.

“You have to entice people to want to live, work and play [in Coyote Valley],” said District 2 Councilmember Forrest Williams. “You have to improve the jobs to housing balance to allow people to want to be there. The key to having flexibility is to offer opinions to ensure we deliver the environment people want to be in,” he added.

“We need to have a policy that San Jose comes first. We build within our boundaries,” said Oliverio

District 1 Councilmember Pete Constant amended the recommendation to include reinstatement of the Coyote Valley Specific Plan and the EIR, “assuming that the prerequisite conditions exist.“ Reed added that the task force should finish its work.

The discussion was followed by approval of monetary actions related to the Coyote Valley Specific Plan, which also passed by a vote of 8-3 with Oliverio, Liccardo and Madison Nguyen voting against its passage.

This recommendation offered six actions including an increase of CVSP funding by $1.21 million for an additional six months to cover staff and consultant costs through Dec. 31; negotiation and execution of minor amendments to agreements between the city and various groups that the planning department has been working with an additional six months; negotiate and execute a consultant agreement between the city and HMH Engineers for $50,000 through the end of December with the possibility of increasing it by an additional six-month term; an authorization for a request for qualifications for development of form-based zoning to implement the CVSP, not to exceed $85,648; negotiate legal services; and adopt amendments to increase city-side appropriation by $1.25 million and increase earned revenue by $1.25 million.