Inaction Alert! You can save Santa Clara County open space – by doing nothing!

(CGF sent this “Inaction” Alert out to folks on our email alert list that are likely residents of the Santa Clara County Open Space Authority districts. -Brian) Dear Friend,The Committee for Green Foothills is sending out the easiest environmental Alert in its 47-year history. By doing nothing, you can help save millions of dollars for the Santa Clara County Open Space Authority (OSA) for land protection, and fix a mistake made by the California Supreme Court. All you have to do is to NOT request a refund of past parcel assessments that the Court said had to be made available....

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Sprawl effect from San Jose planning scenarios

San Jose has the following scenarios in its proposed General Plan for future growth: Scenario K – 339,530 new jobs and 158,970 new dwelling units (1.0 J/ER) (Jobs:Employed Resident ratio) Scenario E – 360,550 new jobs and 135,650 new dwelling units (1.1 J/ER) Scenario C – 346,550 new jobs and 88,650 new dwelling units (1.2 J/ER) Scenario J – 526,000 new jobs and 88,650 new dwelling units (1.5 J/ER) Generally accepted figure is that residences will have an average 1.7 people who are employed full time (or the equivalent of full time when multiple people employed part time are counted)....

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CGF comments to San Jose City Council Meeting today

(I would have made the comments below to today’s City Council meeting on its General Plan, but the mayor cut the time in half. I summarized instead. -Brian) (UPDATE: The City Council protected Almaden Valley and mid-Coyote Valley, but not north Coyote Valley. So not too bad, but there’s more to do.) I want to address the suggestions in the supplemental documents for this item. The second Supplemental, from June 15, contains landowner suggestions to develop Almaden Valley and Coyote Valley Urban Reserves, and I think Councilmember Liccardo addressed this. Developers have proposed in the June 3d Supplemental memo, suggesting...

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Poaching risk for state park shutdowns

The state budget emergency has led the governor to suggest closing most of California’s state parks. Henry Coe Park, here in Santa Clara County, is one of the ones at risk, and Supervisor Yeager has proposed a temporary county takeover to keep it open. One reason to do this is the increased problem of poaching in California. Wildlife is both more plentiful in parks and less wary of hunters, so the parks are targets for poachers. Full staffing by rangers, and the presence of witnesses in the form of park visitors, would be the best way to keep poaching limited....

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Rescuing "sustainability" from the vaccuum of meaninglessness

(Below is a piece I submitted to the KQED Perspectives program about the Stanford Sustainable Development Study. Unfortunately they thought the focus was too narrow for the broader Bay Area, but I still think it’s worth getting the word out. -Brian) Everyone talks about “environmental sustainability,” but do we know what it really means? Claims of sustainability may amount to little more than greenwashing, with no more content or definition to them than being “Earth-Friendly”. This problem has happened in Santa Clara County, with an unfulfilled promise made by Stanford University. In return for massive development rights, the university promised...

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The great news keeps rolling in, and we can take some of the credit

Last week we could celebrate the purchase of 966-acre Rancho San Vicente, an important link in a chain of protected land extending immediately south of San Jose. Environmental opposition to sprawl in Coyote Valley was crucial for stopping the sprawl proposal that the developers originally tried at San Vicente: Tom deRegt, a partner in New Cities Development Group, said his firmdecided to sell the Rancho San Vicente land for the same price itpaid in 1998. Back then, he said, the driving force was Cisco Systems’ plans fora new campus at Coyote Valley on Highway 101.“We felt the jobs created by...

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CGF Letter on the San Jose General Plan Revision

(We sent this letter out last week regarding preserving farmlands and stopping sprawl in San Jose. -Brian) May 21, 2009 San Jose City CouncilEnvision San Jose Task Force Dear City Council and Task Force Members; The Committee for Green Foothills urges you seize the opportunity presented to you both to preserve the farmlands adjacent to San Jose and also to plan for a balanced future of jobs and housing, not an imbalanced one forcing thousands of drivers to live elsewhere and commute to San Jose. Specifically, we ask you to do the following: · Withdraw the Urban Growth Boundary (UGB)...

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Another victory for the environment – Rancho San Benito proposal withdrawn

Great news in the Hollister FreeLance: DMB informed San Benito County officials today the company hasofficially withdrawn its proposal for the 6,800-unit El Rancho San Benitodevelopment northwest of Hollister off Highway 25, a planning official confirmedto the Free Lance. DMB representatives submitted the withdrawal letter to thecounty today and attributed the decision to the ailing economy, said ArtHenriques, county planning director. “They indicated in the letter, clearly,there’s a lot more going on in the world than just this project in San BenitoCounty,” Henriques said. “They have a significant company that is dealing with aglobal economy.” I’m sure economic conditions played...

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Tom Jordan: An environmental perspective

Palo Alto Online – May 1, 2009 Tom Jordan: An environmental perspective Battle-scarred conservationist takes a long-term view by Chris Kenrick, Palo Alto Weekly Staff Commuting from Palo Alto to his San Jose law office, Tom Jordan recalls when 50 percent of the land on both sides of U.S. Highway 101 consisted of pear orchards. In those days in the mid-1960s, few people had even heard of environmentalism, much less imagined it would become any kind of movement. Towns surrounding San Francisco Bay were filling in bay waters to create more land, shrinking the bay from 680 to 400 square...

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Stanford Sustainable Development Study: document dump

I normally try to post most of my written communications here on the blog. In the case of the Stanford Study, much of that didn’t happen due to everything going on. Below the fold are a few of the things I wrote during that time: ————–(A short PowerPoint presentation on the failure to define “sustainability”) ———————— (More on what should have been included) Principles for a new chapter in the Stanford Sustainable Development Study regarding the Academic Growth Boundary and Stanford’s future after 2035 Academic growth needs:While acknowledging that significant increases in Stanford’s population and square footage beyond that discussed...

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