The Committee is Watching...

... San Jose’s projection that housing prices will climb 3% annually for 60 years in Coyote Valley, providing crucial tax revenues, when household income has increased less than 1% annually, and when recent housing prices indicate a slowdown in the market.

... San Jose (again) asserting that providing 5,000 affordable housing units in Coyote Valley is a net benefit for the city, without analyzing the total demand for affordable housing created by adding a city of 80,000-plus people to the South Bay.

... San Francisco Bay Regional Water Board, updating permits controlling water impacts from new development, and hopefully includ-ing monitoring provisions for new impervious surfaces.

... Santa Clara County’s Community Resource Group, which has refused to discuss whether Stanford reneged on an earlier promise on trails, despite the CRG’s stated purpose as a place to exchange information.

... The proposed auto mall on the Bay side of Highway 101 in Palo Alto, which could have significant impacts on the visual environment if designed in the typical gaudy style of car lots (among other problems like night-time lighting effects on wildlife).

... The San Jose Mercury News’ Sunshine Proposal to improve disclosure of government actions in San Jose, which would be even better if San Jose stopped giving developers the right to create preliminary versions of environmental documents that San Jose ultimately adopts.

... The proposed Water Resources Protection Ordinance in cities throughout Santa Clara County, which could be helpful if properly enforced without loopholes, but which needs adequate supervision by the Santa Clara Valley Water District.

... Global warming, which local development actions affect (and which can affect development in low-lying areas as ocean levels rise) but is routinely ignored in environmental documentation, and something the Committee is trying to get local governments to consider before approving sprawl.

... Caltrans District 4 Director Bijan Sartipi who announced that over 100 horizontal tiebacks will be sunk under the sliding Devil’s Slide roadbed some 150 feet into the cliff face, hopefully anchoring the slide for many years after the road is abandoned when the tunnel is completed in 2011.

... The San Mateo County Board of Supervisors who are still working on the update of the Local Coastal Program for the Montara, Moss Beach, and El Granada area of the coast.

... The Big Wave Project proposed in Princeton, which promises to make waves of its own. This proposed mixed use project with large office buildings and housing for developmentally delayed adults adjacent to the Pillar Point Marsh will need to overcome several policy hurdles, including its location in a designated tsunami zone.

The Committee Applauds…

... Former board member Zoe Kersteen-Tucker, who was recently appointed as the Executive Director of the Half Moon Bay Open Space Trust.

... The California Supreme Court, which recently upheld the ordinances enacted by Santa Cruz and San Mateo Counties that restrict the location of logging on lands that are not specifically zoned for commercial timber harvesting.

... Santa Clara County proposals to improve the County General Plan and zoning to increase protection of undeveloped viewsheds as seen from the Santa Clara Valley floor.