Oppose bad land use planning in Coyote Valley
Posted August 3, 2004 / Updated September 2, 2004

• What's happening
• What CGF's doing
• Jobs-housing imbalance a recipe for sprawl
• Agricultural lands need protection
• What's next
• What you can do    UPDATED

As you probably know, the massive development proposed for Coyote Valley would destroy thousands of acres of farmland and lead to further sprawl in Santa Clara County and beyond. Current plans are NOT smart growth, and need significant improvements. Please ask the City of San Jose to address housing demand and protections for agriculture in Coyote Valley before development moves forward.

What's happening
For decades, CGF has fought off a succession of development proposals in Coyote Valley in southern San Jose, one of the last vestiges of Santa Clara County's agricultural heritage.

Despite the economic downturn, the city seems determined to support a massive development that would put a de facto city larger than Morgan Hill and Gilroy in Coyote Valley, fueling sprawl elsewhere and destroying over 2,000 acres of agricultural land.

The entire process appears to be rushed, in an apparent effort to give control over Coyote Valley development to the current City Council and Mayor. This unjustified rush does not excuse inadequate environmental review. San Jose residents, their neighbors and reviewing agencies need to understand the effects of Coyote Valley development.

Unfortunately, these plans are in direct opposition to the "smart growth" model purported to be a central goal of the City's planning for Coyote Valley. The failure by the City to properly address housing demand and agricultural protection are particularly significant shortcomings.

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Rather than endorsing the overall wisdom of planning development in Coyote Valley, our collaborative efforts are aimed at ensuring that the EIR addresses the problems of sprawl and loss of agricultural land.

Together with Greenbelt Alliance, Santa Clara Valley Audubon Society and the Loma Prieta Chapter of the Sierra Club, we asked the Mayor and the Task Force to consider alternatives that balance housing supply with future job creation and preserve agricultural lands in Coyote Valley.

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Jobs-housing imbalance a recipe for sprawl
An essential component of smart growth is ensuring that jobs and housing are balanced and near each other. Coyote Valley fails on both counts because it supplies at least 10,000 fewer housing units than will be required by the industrial campuses that San Jose is planning. That demand for housing will have to go somewhere away from Coyote Valley, increasing sprawl in Morgan Hill, Gilroy and parts south and east.

If San Jose is to meet its commitment to consider methods to minimize sprawl impacts, this must be addressed. We urged the City to ensure that the alternative proposals considered in the EIR must both plan for and meet all the housing demand generated by industrial development in Coyote Valley.

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Agricultural lands need protection
Our joint position letter also asks the City to take specific steps to ensure that farms remain productive and sustainable in Coyote Valley. Specifically, we have asked that the EIR establish a target amount of agricultural land to be maintained through the development process, and to impose an immediate development moratorium for agricultural lands within the Coyote Valley Greenbelt until the EIR has been approved.

In addition, we have asked the City to collaborate with key stakeholders to draft an "agricultural preservation element" of the Specific Plan to explore the opportunities, economics and policy elements of this complex issue.

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What's next
The Task Force will be selecting a Preferred Alternative for Coyote Valley development and referring their work to the San Jose City Council for approval, which will start the process for an EIR.

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What you can do

1. Speak up: Ask for a smart process
Write to the Task Force members asking them to ensure that the environmental review for Coyote Valley both plans for and satisfies all the housing demand that development generates, and that the environmental review considers agricultural protection and a development moratorium.

Please specifically mention your support of the requests of the July 12 letter from our environmental coalition.

Send your comments to:
   Members of the Coyote Valley Specific Plan Task Force
    c/o Sal Yakubu, Principal Planner
   San José City Hall
   801 North 1st Street
   San Jose, CA 95110

   Email salifu.yakubu@sanjoseca.gov
   Fax: (408) 277-3250

Request that your letter be distributed to the entire Coyote Valley Specific Plan Task Force. And as always, please send a copy to us so we can track the efficacy of our work: Fax (650) 968-8431 or info@GreenFoothills.org.

2. Learn more...
Read the August 13, 2004 letter from Morgan Hill Mayor Dennis Kennedy to the City of San Jose expressing concerns on behalf of communities in southern Santa Clara County about Coyote Valley development.

Read our July 12, 2004 joint letter to the Coyote Valley Specific Plan Task Force.

Find out what the Coyote Valley Specific Plan Task Force is doing next.

Read the June 2004 Metro article, "Why is the Mercury News calling the city's vision for Coyote Valley sustainable when it isn't?"

Read our August 2001 newsletter article about CGF's campaign opposing Cisco's development in Coyote Valley.

Read our March 2004 newsletter article about CGF's work in southern Santa Clara County.


Stay on top of the latest with this and other local environmental issues -- sign up to receive Committee for Green Foothills action alerts by email.

3. Support Committee for Green Foothills.
Become a CGF member or make a donation.

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