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

Developers driving the future of Coyote Valley

Compromise could ruin Coyote Valley development

How Coyote Valley hurts central San Jose
by Brian Schmidt

The advantage of using a laptop computer when you are a Legislative Advocate is that "dead time" in very long meetings becomes quality time for getting work done.

It is now after 9 p.m. on a Wednesday night, and I am patiently waiting for the San Jose Planning Commission to reach the one item I want to talk to them about. After using the waiting time to start preparing this article on how Coyote Valley hurts the business vitality of central San Jose, I just realized the hearings that I am ignoring actually demonstrate the problems with developing Coyote Valley.

At least two of the land use hearings concern commercial properties in San Jose that no one wants to use. Empty warehouses with associated vandalism have resulted from the dot-com construction binge. Why would anyone in his right mind slow down the redevelopment of these areas by trying to move businesses to Coyote Valley?

Coyote Valley impacts downtown San Jose
Anyone traveling south from San Jose can quickly see the most obvious damage from developing Coyote Valley - the loss of thousands of acres of farmland that currently stop Bay Area sprawl from pushing through to southern Santa Clara County. A different cost may be less obvious - the financial harm that efforts to develop Coyote will have on the recovery of central San Jose (downtown and the North First Street areas).

Given the current glut of unoccupied commercial and industrial office space, one wonders why San Jose city leaders would try to develop yet another area that would not create more business for the City, but instead would keep empty the buildings in central San Jose. San Jose already has an intensive effort to add office space to downtown and North First Street, so Coyote will further slow the effort to make central San Jose prosperous.

The same old "If we build they will come" tune
San Jose City staff have a standard, but insufficient, response. They say that in 20 to 30 years, large numbers of jobs will come to the City, so they need to develop in all areas, including Coyote Valley. What this explanation misses is the effect that developing Coyote in the short and medium term will have on the rest of the City.

The number of jobs in the City decades in the future will not change whether Coyote development will steal businesses away from central San Jose. If Coyote is truly needed in thirty years (and we're not sure it will be), then the project should be proposed when it is necessary, so the planning can more appropriately match what is needed at the time.

Another "don't worry" argument that we've heard states that Coyote will not compete with vacancy and new development in San Jose, because the expense of developing Coyote will mean it will only develop after central San Jose fills up. Because San Jose wants to remove the "triggers" in its General Plan that would otherwise slow down Coyote development, the only thing stopping Coyote would be this argument that economic facts will give central San Jose priority to businesses looking for space.

The commercial/residential development shell game
The problem here lies in the relationship between commercial and residential development. While commercial development may not make money in Coyote for years, residential development can make a lot of money for developers, immediately. In lieu of the General Plan triggers, San Jose now proposes a "two jobs, one house" ratio, so that every incremental increase in jobs in Coyote Valley would allow highly lucrative residential construction. The potential then is for a cross-subsidy, where commercial development gets subsidized by Coyote landowners, who then begin residential development, where the real money lies.

The "don't worry, Coyote won't develop commercially for years because it isn't profitable" argument doesn't work - under the new plan, developers don't need to make money on commercial property, they only need to steal businesses away from San Jose so they can make money in the residential market.

We can predict a giant sucking sound will be heard in San Jose soon if environmentalists are unable to stop Coyote Valley approval, a decision that will likely occur in 2006. The sound will be that of Coyote developers vacating their central San Jose office leases in a big whoosh, moving every employee they have to modular office trailers in Coyote, and claiming their residential development rights based on the number of jobs they "created." From this point, the developers will offer attractive, even money-losing deals, to get existing and new business to locate in Coyote instead of central San Jose, which will then allow developers to make money off residences.

For decades now, Coyote Valley has featured environmentalists battling developers. As this process continues, we hope that businesses and others promoting the vitality of central San Jose will also become involved.