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 voting to protect nature and farmland – please keep holding the line on future appeals. And thank you to all the Santa Clara County residents who emailed the Planning Commission over the past few months in response to our action alerts – your voices were heard!

Missed Deadlines Doom Residential Sprawl Projects on Open Space

Dozens of residential sprawl projects in rural Santa Clara County have been proposed over the past two years under the “builder’s remedy” – a provision in state law that overrides local zoning for certain types of residential developments if a city or county does not have a state-certified Housing Element (a plan for future housing growth). However, builder’s remedy projects must adhere to strict legal deadlines for submitting completed development applications. Several of these developers failed to submit all the required information by the deadline, and the County determined their applications to be incomplete – meaning these projects cannot proceed under the builder’s remedy law. The developers then appealed those determinations to the Santa Clara County Planning Commission.

The Planning Commission heard the first of these appeals in August, two more in September, and an appeal for a fourth project earlier this month. The Commissioners denied all of those appeals because in each case the developers failed to provide all of the required information by the deadline. However, all of the votes were extremely close. More appeals are expected to come before the Planning Commission in the coming weeks, including one that was deferred from October 23 to November 20.

The items missing from these applications include important and significant information. For example, one of these projects is located in a high fire hazard severity zone, but failed to provide evidence showing sufficient water flow for firefighting. Another project lies partly within a FEMA floodplain, but failed to evaluate how high the waters could rise in a flood. The County rightly considered these applications to be incomplete without this important information.

These Projects Would Be Harmful to Nature and People

The proposed developments would be harmful to open space, farmland, and habitat. Several of them would block wildlife movement between open space areas, would destroy oak woodland habitat, or would pave over prime farmland soil.

The projects are also all located on sites that are hazardous in various ways. Some are in wildfire hazard areas, while others lie partly or entirely within FEMA floodplains. Some also have geologic hazards such as liquefaction (meaning that in an earthquake the ground could liquefy) or seismic hazard zones.

Green Foothills supports building more housing, but it should be located in infill areas, not on open space, farmland, or wildlife habitat, and not on sites that could put residents at risk of fire, flooding, or other hazards.

What’s Next?

Although all four appeals were denied, the developers may sue the County over these denials, so the projects could still come back if those lawsuits are successful. Meanwhile, more appeals are expected to be heard in the coming weeks.

Thanks to the Santa Clara County Planning Commission for rejecting the builder’s remedy sprawl project appeals, and thank you to Green Foothills supporters for emailing the Planning Commission to urge them to continue holding the line for local nature and farmland! If you’d like to email the Planning Commission about the appeal they’ll be hearing on November 20, you can use this handy online form.

If you’d like to receive emails from Green Foothills alerting you to opportunities to speak up about sprawl development on rural land in your area, sign up for our newsletter at greenfoothills.org/subscribe.