On Thursday, January 29, the Santa Clara County Planning Commission will once again consider a development proposal that threatens open space and wildlife outside San Jose. Like several projects we’ve alerted you about in recent months, this residential sprawl project would block critical wildlife movement and put residents in harm’s way. The developer failed to meet the county’s application deadline and has appealed to the Planning Commission. We’re asking you to urge the Planning Commission to deny the developer’s appeal.

What’s Happening

Developers have submitted more than 40 applications to Santa Clara County under California’s “builder’s remedy” law. Nearly all of these projects would be built on open space or farmland and many would be in FEMA flood zones or wildfire hazard zones. The builder’s remedy law says that if a city or county doesn’t have a state-approved plan for building enough homes, developers can ignore local zoning rules and build anywhere they wish, as long as the project fits certain criteria. The purpose of the law is to make sure cities and counties don’t shirk their responsibility to build housing.

However, builder’s remedy projects must adhere to strict legal deadlines for submitting completed development applications. Several of these developers have failed to submit all the required information by the deadline, and the County has determined their applications to be incomplete – meaning these projects cannot proceed under the builder’s remedy law. The developers appealed the incompleteness determinations to the Planning Commission, which has denied all of the appeals so far because the developers failed to provide all of the required information by the deadline. However, all of the votes were extremely close, in most cases with a 4-3 vote by the Commissioners.

Now, another developer has similarly failed to provide the required information for a builder’s remedy application by the deadline. Other builder’s remedy projects have also been deemed incomplete and may be heard by the Planning Commission in the coming weeks. It is important to speak up about each of these harmful projects as they come before the Planning Commission. Your emails make a difference!

Why It Matters

This builder’s remedy project, known as Quicksilver Estates, would put 44 housing units on open space outside of San Jose in between Almaden Quicksilver County Park and Alamitos Creek, an important wildlife movement corridor. Nearby residents have observed abundant wildlife living on and moving through the site, including deer, coyotes, bobcats, and numerous species of native birds. In addition, this site is in a fire hazard severity zone and a liquefaction hazard zone (meaning that in an earthquake the ground could liquefy).

Santa Clara County has received dozens of builder’s remedy development proposals totalling nearly 7,000 units, nearly all on open space or farmland and many in FEMA flood zones or wildfire hazard zones. If all of these residential sprawl projects were to be approved, County resources would be severely strained by trying to protect and provide services to thousands of new homes scattered throughout the rural countryside.

Our region needs to build more housing, but we need to build it in urban, infill locations – not in rural areas, not on open space or wildlife habitat, and definitely not in areas where people would be put in harm’s way.

What You Can Do

Please use the form below to email the Santa Clara County Planning Commission and ask them to deny the appeal.