November 5, 2004

Pleasant Hills Neighborhood Association brings developer, residents
face-to-face to discuss proposed development

By Dan Reyes
Staff Writer

Members of the Pleasant Hills Neighborhood Association (PHNA) met with representatives from KB Home on Nov. 1 to better understand the home building company’s proposal to develop the recently closed Pleasant Hills/Cypress Greens Golf Courses.

More than once, KB Home representatives stressed the fact that their design was only a draft, a work in progress. But, draft or no draft, for many members of the PHNA, KB Homes was missing the point.

“We just don’t want it!” said Evergreen resident Ellie Glass to wide applause and vocal support in the multipurpose room of August Boeger School. “You give a great presentation, but we don’t want anything other than a golf course,” added the San Jose native who lives in the Pala Rancho development bordering the golf course.

During the question-and-answer period that followed the presentation, association members pressed KB Home for more details about the proposed plan. They asked about the impact of new development on area schools, the location of green space, what safety measurers were being taken to protect the golf course while it was not being occupied and the fate of the wildlife currently living on the golf course.

The draft design devotes five acres to commercial development, 20 acres for open space and the remainder to hold between 800 and 900 homes. There will be 25 to 35 homes on 4,000 to 8,000 square-foot lots, 528 to 660 homes on lots up to 4,000 square feet and 180 to 204 townhomes.

Near the end of the question-and-answer session, Robert Lorenzo, Jr. asked Laurel Prevetti, deputy director of Planning Services for San Jose, the question on many association members’ minds.

“There are millions and millions of dollars at stake in this project,” said Lorenzo. “Can the voices of a few hundred people have a chance against millions and millions of dollars?”

“Stay involved with the Evergreen Visioning Project,” said Prevetti. “You have a voice, and there are a lot of different things you can do.”

The final outcome of development on the Pleasant Hills Golf Course is anything but a foregone conclusion. But the project is not a stand-alone project. The golf course is one of four areas in Evergreen being considered for development.

The Evergreen Visioning Project, coordinated by the office of Councilman Dave Cortese and San Jose’s Planning Department, is an attempt to coordinate the development on all four sites with as much community input, and benefit, as possible.

The Evergreen Visioning Project
The Evergreen Visioning Project (EVP) Task Force began meeting in September 2003 to coordinate home and commercial building in four major opportunity sites in the Evergreen area. They are:

- Industrial – Located on the east side of Yerba Buena Road, between Old Yerba Buena Road and Fowler Road and north of the northerly terminus of Yerba Buena Road, south of Aborn Road.

- Arcadia – Located on the south side of Quimby Road, approximately 900 feet west of Capitol Expressway, near Eastridge Shopping Mall.

- Pleasant Hills – Located on the northeast corner of Tully and White Roads.

- Evergreen Valley College – Located on the north side of Yerba Buena Road, approximately 350 feet easterly of San Felipe Road.

The project is unique in one important respect; developers have agreed to help foot the bill for various amenities and upgrades requested by the community. The largest items on this list of amenities are a partial cloverleaf interchange at Capitol/101 and braided ramps at YerbaBuena/101, an auxiliary lane on 101 between Story and Capitol, a partial cloverleaf interchange at Tully/101 and a partial cloverleaf interchange at Story/101/280/680. A full list of proposed amenities can be found at the EVP Web site.

At the PHNA meeting, Robert Freed, KB Home Northern California president, made it clear that while KB Home would like to build homes and provide the agreed upon amenities, they are a for-profit business and will only go through with the project if it makes economic sense for them to do so.

Any plan drafted by the EVP must, ultimately, be approved by the San Jose City Council and is scheduled to go before the council in 2005. Part of the decision includes allowing the proposed development sites to be zoned for residential and commercial building. Currently, Pleasant Hills Golf Course is not zoned for residential building.

Ike White, president of the homeowners association, tried to steer a middle course between the proposed plan for Pleasant Hills and the desire to stop the project all together.

“We are getting passionate at the wrong time,” said White. “Our desires cannot prevent the owners from selling their property [golf course]. We need to let the developers know what we want and don’t want. There will be more public hearings.”

For more information about the Pleasant Hills Neighborhood Association visit: www.pleasanthillsna.com For more information about the Evergreen Visioning Project visit: http://www.sanjoseca.gov/planning/evergreen/index.htm.