August 8, 2008

District 8 Report

Help shape Evergreen’s future

By Vice Mayor Dave Cortese
Special to the Times

Many of you are probably familiar with the Evergreen Visioning Project. Launched in 2003, I had the privilege of working with an ambitious group of neighborhood leaders from around District 8 to help plan what the Evergreen-East Hills-Silver Creek area of San Jose would look like twenty years from now.

This task force, in consultation with residents from their neighborhoods, rolled up their sleeves and put together very important guiding principles for how the future of our district should be developed. Together we staved off uncontrolled growth by establishing a new set of growth limits, making sure that no new development is ever approved, unless parks, community centers, school impact and traffic relief measures are included so as to maintain and improve our quality of life.

That’s a pretty tall order but it’s important to set the bar high. As a result, by order of the City Council and underscored in spirit by you, the residents, no large housing developments can come to our area without a plan to put such amenities in place.

Instead the task force did recommend (and the Council agreed) to limit new housing allocations to 500 residential units to be built in District 8.

Overall, this is a huge victory for our district. We banded together and sent a firm message to the lawmakers here at City Hall – no more runaway growth. We already have about 27,000 homes in our district (all of which was approved prior to 1993), and we cannot absorb thousands more because our interchanges are over-loaded and our parks and library are serving thousands of families already. The 500 unit limit is the most we intend to accommodate at this point in time. Much needed improvements to 101 at Tully to Hellyer have been approved but won’t be under construction until 2009.

If you are interested in reviewing or commenting on this policy, now is a good time. With any proposed development policy, we must understand the impacts to our surroundings before making any final decisions.

The City is proposing a revision to the Evergreen East Hills Development (EEHD) Policy to provide for traffic allocation for the future development of the following uses: 500 detached residential dwelling units; 500,000 square feet of commercial retail space; and 75,000 square feet of office space. The locations of this development within the Evergreen area have not been determined. The revised Policy would limit the number of dwelling units to a maximum of 35 on any one site unless the development incorporates affordable housing, historic preservation, or mixed-use components. For purposes of the update, the revised Policy is proposed to be called the Evergreen East Hills Development Policy. Information on the Policy can be found at http://www.sanjoseca.gov/planning/evergreen/
The City is preparing a Supplemental Environmental Report (SEIR) to the Evergreen East Hills Vision Strategy Project (EEHVS) EIR for the purpose of analyzing and disclosing the environmental impacts of the proposed revision to the Policy to provide traffic allocation for 1) the pool of 500 detached residential dwelling units, 2) the 500,000 square feet of commercial retail space, and 3) the 75,000 square feet of office space.

Since the proposed revision to the Policy will be limited to the subject of traffic capacity, the analysis of impacts in the SEIR will be limited to traffic, as well as traffic-related noise and air quality. A Notice of Preparation is currently in circulation and can be viewed at http://www.sanjoseca.gov/planning/eir/eir.asp.

Your views on what should be taken into consideration and studied are extremely important. Specifically, the city wants to know your thoughts on the scope and content of the environmental information to be addressed in the SEIR. Comments are due by August 22, 2008 and should be sent to:

City of San Jose
Attn: Dipa Chundur
Planning, Building and Code Enforcement
Planning Services Division
200 East Santa Clara Street
San Jose, CA 95113-1905
Phone (408) 535-7688
Fax (408) 292-6055
email: Dipa.chundur@sanjoseca.gov

Once the SEIR is complete, the information will be presented to the City Council as part of an update to the EEHD. The Council will vote (later this year) whether or not to actually limit new development to the capacity for the 500 new residential units.

This is a very critical point in our district’s development and I hope you will take the time to share your views. If I can be of assistance in any way, I hope you will contact me at (408) 535-4908 or dave.cortese@sanjoseca.gov.