The Committee is Watching...

Gazos Creek Watershed — where the Ainsley Forest LLC has done extensive grading and land clearing on a 960-acre parcel without benefit of appropriate grading and Coastal Development permits

Half Moon Bay — where citizens presented nearly 2,000 signatures in support of developing a new park at the 21 acre Pilarcitos Creek site that is being sold to the City by Peninsula Open Space Trust

Henry Coe State Park — where half the park burned in a wildfire set by humans, but where wildfire has also been absent for too long, and where careful environmental planning is now necessary

Los Gatos — where the Committee has heard several complaints in recent months about lax development standards, in particular a new proposal to put development dangerously close to a stream

Midcoast Local Coastal Program revision — which is being evaluated by the Coastal Commission for compliance with the California Coastal Act

Moffett Field — where Google’s plans to develop one million square feet of office space could have significant open space effects depending on where these people will be housed

San Jose — which has allowed developers to select and hire the consultants used for its environmental and financial review documents, raising questions about whether the acknowledged problems with the Coyote Valley documents will simply be repeated

San Mateo County Rural Lands — where an audit by the State Department of Conservation has determined that landowners on 46,000 acres of San Mateo County Lands may be ineligible for substantial tax breaks for preserving agricultural land under the state’s Williamson Act

Stanford Shopping Center and Medical Center expansions — with over a million square feet of development and requested intense development that could have significant environmental impacts

The Committee Applauds…

Cañada College — which is obtaining approvals for Cañada Vista, an innovative housing project for faculty and staff on an underutilized parking lot

California Department of Fire and Forestry — for rejecting the massive, perpetual logging proposal submitted by the San Jose Water Company to log the redwood forests above Los Gatos

Foothill College — for recognizing the importance of environmental issues and potential impacts of bringing new vineyards to the South Bay

Portola Valley — which is moving forward to restore Corte Madera Creek to a natural flowing stream at the new Town Center

Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors — for unanimously rejecting a precedent for sprawl in the form of a proposal to redesignate land from less-intense Hillside uses to more-intense Rural Residential use in an area far beyond Morgan Hill city limits

San Mateo County Board of Supervisors — who unanimously approved a new provision that will require a Conservation Easement to be dedicated to the County as a condition of subdivision in the Resource Management Zoning District, thus ensuring that once development occurs on these sensitive lands, the remaining lands will remain in open space.