February 25, 2005

Evergreen Visioning Project takes shape

Traffic and environmental impact studies next

By Mike McFerran
Staff Writer

The Evergreen Visioning Project reached an important milestone on Feb. 24 in the one-and-a-half-year-long process of planning Evergreen’s future growth.

Bo Radanovich represents the developers group. Photos by Mike McFerran.

The EVP Task Force voted unanimously to approve sending key recommendations to Council-member Dave Cortese as he prepares to initiate the Traffic Analysis and Environmental Impact Report on plans intended to outline the smart growth of Evergreen.

Taking the Task Force’s recommendations into consideration, Cortese will continue his efforts to drive the process of planning Evergreen’s future growth.

Project description
A Preliminary Project Description will now be issued. That report deals with issues of development, traffic and amenities, and forms the basis for the traffic study and environmental impact report (EIR). The current schedule calls for public review of the EIR in July.

The Task Force was assembled by Cortese in mid-2003. Its ultimate purpose is to make recommendations that will be used to help plan the smart growth of Evergreen. Revisions will be made to land use designations for four specific Evergreen area properties, traffic policy will be updated and certain community projects and improvements could be included as a part of any revised development plans.

A key piece of the Task Force’s proposed project description is to make a recommendation for the number and type of housing units for each of the four opportunity sites being studied.

Using a series of private meetings over the past months, some Task Force members were able to work out a position on the number of new housing units they believe should be considered in the environmental impact and traffic studies, which will soon commence.

Executive sessions
Several Task Force members reported that the monthly public meetings had not been as effective as they had hoped.

These members felt that by meeting as a caucus, in private sessions, they would be able to make much more progress. The group met more frequently than the EVP Task Force, and caucus attendees were more comfortable speaking their minds than in the public forum.

At the regular meeting of the entire Task Force at Evergreen Valley High School on Feb. 24, the results of the caucus meetings were presented to the entire group for their ratification. Task Force member Jim Zito, made a crisp presentation, recommending that the studies be based on 3,800 to 4,600 new housing units.

At the median number of 4,200, he called for 1,850 units on the Arcadia site (south of Eastridge) and 1,050 on the Industrial site (along Yerba Buena Road.). He also called for 600 on the Pleasant Hills Golf Course site, 300 on a portion of the Evergreen Valley College land and 400 on various smaller lots that could be subject to development.

Task Force member Jim Zito explains the proposal.

Vince Songcayawon followed by carefully explaining how the plan would generate enough amenity fees from developers to cover the necessary road improvements and other desired community upgrades.

Using clear examples, he showed how, with three specific changes to the basic assumptions used by the developers, the plan would generate sufficient amenity fees and still provide substantial profits for the landowners and developers.

Public comments
Before voting to approve the recommendation, the Task Force allowed public comment. Many citizens offered their thanks for the work of the Task Force. Most expressed concerns that the Task Force was supporting too many new housing units, that traffic was already too heavy and that open spaces were disappearing.

After discussion, the vote was unanimous to accept the plan as the recommendation of the Task Force.
Unfortunately, for Cortese, the results of the meeting fall short of expectations. He had hoped that the Task Force, including the property owners and developers, would be able to agree on the number and type of new housing units to be studied.

The latter contingent, represented by Bo Radanovich, reported that they are asking for the studies to be based on a total of 5,675 new housing units. Although a negotiating team from the Task Force met with developers several times over the past month, they were unable to reach an agreement on how many housing units would be necessary to generate enough money to pay for all necessary improvements.

With two proposals, rather than one, Cortese must now take the role as the arbiter or final negotiator and must settle remaining disputes by directive.

As the meeting wrapped up, both members of the Task Force and citizens offering public comment expressed concern about communications with the public. City Planner Laurel Prevetti, expressed sensitivity to the public’s need for appropriate notice about upcoming meetings as the process continues.

And Task Force Chairman, Mike Alvarado, supported providing time in the next meeting to discuss issues of community outreach and input from community groups.