The City of San Jose is about to start studying the environmental impacts of a massive proposed development on open space at the former Pleasant Hills Golf Course. But while that review hasn’t even started, the landowner has already begun cutting down and removing trees—destroying wildlife habitat before the city can evaluate or address the...
Over the past two months, the Santa Clara County Planning Commission has rejected appeals for four residential sprawl projects on rural land. These developments would have destroyed farmland and wildlife habitat and would have put homes in wildfire hazard zones, flood zones, and areas subject to seismic hazards. Thank you to the Planning Commission for...
Update 10/23/25: The Planning Commission has postponed its vote on this topic until November 20. Thank you to everyone who emailed the Planning Commission in response to our action alert. Your comments will be included in the packet that Planning Commission staff provide to the Commissioners for their November 20 meeting. To anyone who hasn’t...
Update: We’re pleased to report that on October 7, the Planning Commission voted 4-2 to deny this project. Your emails made a difference! Over the past few weeks, the Santa Clara County Planning Commission has denied appeals for three residential sprawl projects on open space where the developers missed important application deadlines under the builder’s...
Update: We’re pleased to report that on September 25, the Planning Commission voted to deny both appeals. The votes were 4-3 and 5-2. Thank you to everyone who emailed the Planning Commissioners! On Thursday, September 25, the Santa Clara County Planning Commission will consider whether two development applications for residential sprawl on open space outside...
Earlier this summer, in an unprecedented rollback to California’s fundamental environmental and community protections, the California legislature passed a deeply unpopular, flawed bill called SB 131. At the time, progressive leadership promised to clean up some of SB 131’s most damaging provisions. Now we must hold them to those promises and demand the legislature pass...
Update: We’re pleased to report that on August 28, the Planning Commission voted 4-3 to deny the appeal of this project. We’d like to thank Commissioners Cohen, Escobar, Hetterly and Levy for their vote to uphold the proper process and deny the appeal. On Thursday, August 28, the Santa Clara County Planning Commission will consider...
On Tuesday, August 5, there will be a public meeting about the environmental impacts of a proposed new energy facility in south San Jose. The project could be built in one of two places: on an orchard in Coyote Valley, or at an existing PG&E substation. According to the California Public Utility Commission (CPUC)’s environmental...
We’re excited to report that San Jose has dropped a potential plan that could have greatly increased the amount of development along Monterey Road in Coyote Valley. Development in this area could have severely harmed the entire Coyote Valley landscape, since Coyote Creek, which runs alongside Monterey Road, is the most important wildlife corridor through...
On June 30, through a rushed last-minute process, the California Legislature approved one of the most devastating rollbacks ever of the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) – the state’s signature environmental law. Green Foothills is working with a coalition of over 130 nonprofit organizations to urge the Legislature to fix the worst issues with this...
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