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Read these related articles, also from the Summer 2005 Green Footnotes:

Developers driving the future of Coyote Valley

How Coyote Valley hurts central San Jose

Compromise could ruin Coyote Valley development
by Scott Herhold, reprinted with permission from the Mercury News

Not long before I began covering the statehouse for the Bloomington Pantagraph many years ago, Illinois had a memorable secretary of state, Paul Powell, who lived as a miser but left $800,000 in shoe boxes when he died. When he heard of a deal that could enlarge his fiefdom or expand his graft, Powell would announce, "Ah kin smell the meat a-cookin'!'"

If you subtract the graft - San Jose's developers are usually careful enough to stay on the right side of the law - you can smell the meat a-cookin' today in the Coyote Valley, San Jose's last big barbecue.

And when you try to figure out what is happening, the truth is simple. The driving force, as it always has been in San Jose politics, is how land is converted to money.

Follow the money and you'll understand that housing developers are driving the process in Coyote. That's one reason Mayor Ron Gonzales has abandoned the so-called "trigger" of 5,000 jobs before allowing housing there. Instead of triggers, we'll have clickers, counting as we go. Two jobs, one home. Two hundred jobs, one hundred homes. Or something.

Gonzales' latest memo, signed with Councilman Forrest Williams, speaks of a "phasing of the willing,"' a mysterious phrase meaning developers can build when they've prepared for such things as streets, sewers and jobs on their corner of the valuable Coyote turf. Throw on those steaks. And don't worry about the other guy's meat.

Should the Coyote planners adopt the mayor's suggestion, they risk a series of piecemeal developments. It could subvert the coordinated vision of their plans, which include a lake and pedestrian-friendly neighborhoods. Given more compromises, Coyote could end as a collection of town houses, the most profitable land use.

What's the problem? Again, it comes back to money, and maybe secondarily the quality of life. For decades, San Jose has insisted on jobs first to protect the city treasury. New residents demand services - cops, firefighters, libraries. Industry, meanwhile, brings income to the city through taxes.

Everyone pays lip service to this. But with a soaring housing market and scores of commercial buildings sitting empty in San Jose, the real action for builders now is in housing.

At the meeting of the Coyote Valley Task Force last Monday, you could hear a not-so-subtle division between Steve Speno, a principal in the Gibson Speno development firm, and Dan Hancock, the president emeritus of home builder Shappell Industries.

Hancock, one of a group that wants to develop central Coyote, talked of going in boldly, building an environment around the lake. Speno, who is allied with Divco West in wanting to develop a chunk in northern Coyote, talked of the need to satisfy lenders and connect with existing streets, roads and pipes.

One interpretation of Gonzales' "phasing of the willing" is that it benefits Speno before it helps Hancock. If the test is to show jobs immediately, Divco West can do that more quickly with its campus-like area near the Metcalfe energy plant. Their grill is heated.

Who's right? In one sense, neither is right - though Speno is brilliant in making his case. Unless you're connected with the development industry - and I know, a lot of people are - most of us have no interest in seeing Coyote Valley dominated by housing. It means more traffic, another dreaded crawl on Highway 101.

If you accept that Coyote can be the ambitious community the task force hopes for, however, then Hancock has the better argument. The notion of a dramatic first step to set the tone is persuasive.

The problem with the "phasing by the willing" is that it opens the door to more revisions. What happens when the jobs don't appear? The pressure to compromise on principle will grow. And suddenly, Coyote will start to look more like the rest of San Jose rather than the innovative place the task force dreams of.

Scott Herhold writes about South Bay politics for the Mercury News.