North San Jose Neighborhoods Planning Taskforce Meeting
Hotel Sierra, 75 Headquarters Drive, San Jose, CA 95134
Monday, September 19, 2011, 6:00 p.m. - 9:00 p.m., Tahoe Community Room

1. Welcome and Introductions, Councilmember Kansen Chu, City of San Jose
   • NSJ Neighborhoods Plan won the 2011 "Neighborhood Planning Award" from the American Planning Association's Northern California Chapter. (see here: APA-CA awards)
   • Introduced the new Redevelopment Agency (RDA) director, Richard Keit. Note that the RDA has been downsized to only 8 employees
2. Status of the California Redevelopment Agencies and its local impact, Richard Keit, Managing Director, San Jose Redevelopment Agency
   • In June, the state of California approved a budget with 2 bills that effectively eliminate RDA's in the state by only allowing them to exist if they pay the state a large fee. For example, SJ's RDA would owe the state $47 million to continue to operate (although SJ RDA has appealed that fee downto $35 million). The various RDA's in the state are sueing the state and trying to prove these bills are unconstiutional based on Proposition 22 (from November 2010, which was intended to halt state raids into local funding). (News article: here.) The lawsuit was accepted by the CA Supreme Court and will likely be decided by January 2012 with the current schedule.
   • If the RDA's win, the RDA's get to continue, but likely will be smaller in scope and impact. The RDA will continue work on developing affordable rental housing (see Palmer case) and also will continue efforts to revitalize SJ's industrial core.
   • If the RDA's lose, they either must pay or cease operations. If SJ's RDA ceases operations, the current contracts and obligations will continue to be met, and the RDA will be forced to sell off land assets to pay the bills. However, if the RDA ceases operations the city council will not have control over the continued obligations because the control is passed to a "succession agency" controlled by a mix of city, county, and other stakeholders.
   • Question: What happened to the NSJ "phasing", where residential development was required in lockstep with commercial/industrial?
     Answer by KChu: The NSJ Phase 1 limit for residential developement has not been reached. When it is reached, we will halt new residential applications until the other Phase 1 requirements have been met.
3. The NSJ update and the City of San Jose General Plan Update and a preview of its impact on NSJ, Joe Horwedel, Planning Director, City of San Jose
   • This brochure should have arrived in your garbage and/or water bill.
   • Envision San Jose 2040 General Plan: is a city masterplan to get us to the year 2040. More information here.
   • The NSJ planning effort was great preparation for the larger effort of the 2040 masterplanning effort.
   • The jobs/houses debate is at the center of our concerns. San Jose is a bedroom community; we are the only major city in the USA with a smaller daytime population than nighttime. We need to change this to fix our tax-revenue and transportation problems. By 2040 our goal is to add 120,000 households (200,000 to 300,000 people) and 470,000 new jobs. That gives us 1.3 jobs per household within the city. We plan on keeping most of our great neighborhoods the same as they are now, fixing up some deficiencies in some neighborhoods, and adding lot of jobs to Downtown and NSJ. We need to bring jobs and services into many neighboroods.
   • Here is an updated list of the approved residential allocations as of May 17, 2011.
   • Here is a map detailing some of the pending projects.
   • Question: What's the update on the Essex property? What's the latest plan filed?
     Answer by JHorwedel: It's approximately the same as the older plans.
   • Question: Renaissance is experiencing a lot of contruction dust and noise, has concerns about traffic mitigation with the new Vista Montana developments, and has had problems with crime and vandalism in recent months.
     Answers: Traffic analysis shows that the new developments should not cause increased traffic on the Renaissance loop. We can show you the analysis. Contruction is only allowed 7am-7pm Monday to Friday (unless there's an override in the development permit), if you are bothered outside those hours contact us and we will take action. If there are street cleanliness issues contact us and we will get the developer to clean it up. Crime has increased all over the city.
   • Question: Still concerned about flood control funding. Also think we should be using more recycled water. What about the water supply for all these new residents? And what about the traffic from the workers going to the new desalinization plant?
     Answer by JHorwedel: Just finished the EIR including water, traffic, flooding; you can review. Recycled water is emphasized more in the new state building codes, so its use will increase in the future. Flood control is a complex subject as NSJ is essentially a flood plain. New development will be more like this hotel, notice how it sits above-grade?
     Follow up question: But when do we stop developing if these issues are not resolved?
     Answer by JHorwedel: That's a fundamental policy question for the city council to decide.
   • Question: (similar to previous question, but more focused on fire/police and community amenities, and the impact to Alviso).
     Answer by JHorwedel: That's what the NSJ phasing plan is designed to address.
   • Question: The 2040 brochure has these pretty pictures of residential-over-retail (RoR). Does NSJ get these pretty pictures, or do we get big-box retail and huge parking lots?
     Answer by JHorwedel: It's going to be a mix. Some of the denser areas of NSJ will be successful with RoR. But in other places RoR won't be successful, so instead big-box will be used.
   • Comment by Richard Santos (paraphrased): Nothing is perfect, it's easy to criticize. The community-amenities-funding issue is a big problem, and there's nothing in writing guaranteeing these amenities will be built. Let's get it in writing so that we can get buy-in and feedback. Right now there's no confidence and little buy-in.
   • Question: What about schools? What's going on with Agnews?
     Answer by KChu: We believe there's still space in the Santa Clara Unified School District to absorb the new students generated from current development permits. That does mean we will be bussing students out of the immediate area.
   • Question: There were 2 recent ballot measures addressing school construction in NSJ. One passed (a bond giving us funding to purchase land) and one failed (a Mello-Roos to fund school construction). Is there still a plan to purchase Agnews?
     Answer by Roger Barnes of SCUSD: Yes, we're still negotiating with the state (and Cisco) to buy the land, but given the Mello-Roos failed, we only have part of the funds needed to construct the school.
     Continued by KChu: There are 2 other location options identified in NSJ plan for schools. We still have options.
4. Project updates from Developers
   The reason so many projects are jump-starting now is because they get a waiver from the city to not have to include affordable housing if they start before September 30th and complete before a certain date. So that is why we're suddenly seeing so much construction in our area.
   • Equity Residential - Erik Schoennauer
     • aka "Vista Montana", by Renaissance, at North First Street and Vista Montana
     • 998 residential units (RUs), one 5-acre park, one 1-acre park.
     • Started construction of Phase 1, 444 RUs, first units finished November 2012. Complete, including the 5-acre park, May 2013.
     • Phase 2 554 units and 1-acre park, will start before 2013, finish before 2014.
     • The 5-acre park will have 2 soccer fields, other activities. The 1-acre park is playground, picnic.
   • Wyse/Thompson-Dorfman - Erik Schoennauer
     • aka "Wyse", at North First Street and River Oaks Parkway and Guadalupe River
     • 1579 RUs, up to 45,000 square feet of retail, and a 5-acre park along the river.
     • Starting construction now on Phase 1: 271 RU's, complete September 2013.
     • Park will start construction 2013, complete 4th quarter 2014. It will have a large turf area, picnic, playgrounds, tennis.
   • Fairfield Residential - Brendan Hayes
     • aka "Baypointe", along Baypointe Parkway
     • Phase 1: 498 RU's and 28,000 sqft of retail. Started construction, will complete end of 2013.
     • Phase 2: 206 RU's start 4Q2012. The 163 Baypointe site with 183 RU's starts 4Q2011.
     • We have 2.3 acres of parkland at 225 Baypointe given to the city already. We're hoping to purchase one of the adjacent parcels to 5 acres.
   • Irvine Company - Jason Fong
     • aka "Sony", at River Oaks Parkway and Zanker
     • 1750 RU's and 10,000 sqft of retail over 5 phases.
     • Phase 1 complete summer 2012, Phase 2 done summer 2013, this is an expedited schedule.
     • 5-acre park completed December 2013. Includes tennis, basketball courts.
     • Question: Since Irvine prides itself on owning its property in perpetuity and being a good neighbor, what is Irvine's opinion on the school issue?
       Answer: Irvine's style of apartments (small 1-2 bedroom) doesn't generate that many school-age residents. Let's look at North Park, which is in NSJ. Our data shows that there are about 100 kids over 6 years old in those 2700 RUs. We see that as families age and grow, they move out of our apartments.
     • Question: What about retail?
       Answer: 10,000 square feet along Zanker Road. We put it on Zanker because there's more traffic exposure there, which means the retail is more likely to succeed. We are hoping to get some small businesses to service our residents, example: coffee, dry cleaner, etc. The city is also considering renting some of this space as a temporary library until NSJ gets a dedicated library.
     • Question: River Oaks Parkway is a mess with all this construction. When will it be restored?
       Answer: ASAP. Please send us your concerns. [KCHu] We have a staffer dedicated to this construciton site, call my offic with concerns.
     • Question: Isn't this shortsighted to only plan for young, transient familes in NSJ and not older, possibly multigenerational familes? Also note that transient-type residents aren't incentivized to vote for amenity improvements.
       Answer by KChu: NSJ is a jobs plan.
   • Essex Property Trust, Inc. - CM Kansen Chu
     • aka "Cadence", at River Oaks Parkway and Seely
     • Concrete pours start now. Offsite improvements (storm sewer, Montague) start mid-October. Contact KChu for details.
   Rincon South area developements are mostly affordable-housing projects.
5. The future of planning and parks in NSJ, Matt Cano, City of San Jose
   • Mid-2013 we will pave the Guadalupe River Trail from Downtown to Alviso.
   • Working on getting funding to pave the Coyote Creek Trail, Bay Trail, and 237 Trails.
   • Working with transportation department to make cross-connections between the north/south riparian corridors.
   • Still working on getting a 15-30 acre community park for NSJ. We haven't found that large parcel yet.
   • 3 parks have turnkey agreements (developer will build): Wyse, Vista Montana, Irvine.
   • The 2.3 acre Baypointe park is now city-owned land.
   • Until last year, affordable housing didn't have any park fees. Now an ordinance has changed it to 50% of normal fees. This is an issue with the Rincon South area.
   • Proposed a grant under Proposition 1C to get $1 million for a park in Rincon South. But that only buys about 1 acre.
   • Question: What happened to the 3-5 acre park proposed for Rincon South? Where did it go? The original parcel now has the Matrix casino being built.
     Answer: No replacement has been identified, yes it keeps moving, no we have not dropped the requirement for a park in Rincon South.
   • Question: There is a bunch of water-treatment/flood-control area in Alviso. Is that going to be used for a park?
     Answer: Yes, 30-60 acres are in a master plan for that space. But we still want a NSJ community park closer to the bulk of the housing.
   • Question: Who maintains the "turnkey" parks? And if it's the city, do we have the money to maintain these new parks to a high standard?
     Answer: The city maintains the parks. While we have a city-wide hold on new parks development (due to the maintenance budget issue), this is not in effect for all these NSJ parks because we have a new ordinance that allows us to take a small portion of the Park Fee (from the developers) and reserve it for the first 10 years of maintenance. We have done this for the Irvine/Crescent park. The Vista Montana park we have a side contract with the developer that pays us $1 million over the next 14 years to maintain those facilities. Otherwise we are working on a case-by-case basis to ensure we have maintenance fees.
   • Question: What about softball fields? We don't want Alviso softball fields overburdened by new NSJ residents.
     Answer by KCHu: There's one potential park with softball fields that we're considering.
   • Question: What about the Essex park? Wasn't that supposed to be turnkey as well?
     Answer: We don't have construction money for it, nor do we have a turneky agreement yet. In addition, the developer hasn't turned over the land to the city, so we can't started that masterplan until that happens. Will follow up and find out what the situtation is.
   • Question: How much development triggers the need for a park? Example: Rincon South?
     Answer: Need land, construction funds. Have applied for a $1 million grant for Rincon South but as you know that's not enough. Since RS is mostly affordable housing there's not a lot of funding in that area.
   • Question: What about the overall park fund? How much is unallocated?
     Answer: NSJ portion of the fund is pretty dry right now. A lot of money has gone towards current projects.
   • Question: Isn't there some way we can fund parks, similar to how a Mello-Roos funds schools?
     Answer: (Note-taker got distracted during some of this answer.) Yes, we're experimenting with such a thing with the Hitachi Park.
   • Question: When Cisco swapped residential allocation along River Oaks Parkway with commercial allocation along Rio Robles, we still need to place the park from that residential allocation along River Oaks. So where should the park go?
     Answer: Taskforce will meet again to discuss this issue.
   • Question: How close to housing should parks be?
     As close as possible. National standards are about 10 minute walk or 1/3 of a mile on safe roads.
   • Question: Are there going to be adequate parking facilities at these new parks for people outside of that walking area (or young familles)?
     Yes, parking is allocated. And in particular Irvine/Crescent will have a restroom.
   • Comment from Roger Barnes, SCUSD: The proposed Agnews school is planned for dual school/community use. Example: the multipurpose room is close to street and parking.
6. Q&A
   • Question: Big apartment complexes have a nasty tendancy to go ghetto. Are we going to get a new police station for NSJ?
     Answer by KChu: We're trying to not let that happen. We're looking at a new police station.
   • Question: What happens with the special tax assessment for River Oaks Parkway median maintenance with the new Irvine complex?
     Answer by transportation: Median is slightly modified for new access portals as you may have noticed. The assessment will still be in place, the look of the median will remain the same. I'll check with Public Works on the funding question.
   • Question: Wasn't there going to be a traffic light at Seely and River Oaks Parkway?
     Answer: Essex will put it in.
   • Question: What types of jobs does NSJ bring in?
     Answer by JHorwedel: See NSJ website, it has whitepapers discussing this. Short answer: we need to bring in a full spectrum.
   • Question: Did the NSJ design guidelines get approved?
     Answer: Yes, in 2010.
   • Question: Is Boston Properties moving forward with their building update and parking garage on the Lockheed Martin site at Zanker and Montague?
     Answer: No, that's on indefinite hold.
   • Question: What is the plan for libraries?
     Ansewr by JHorwedel: There will be a NSJ library. We'd like it "embedded" in a high-density residential site, something like the retail space in the ground floor of Irvine. We want it in the "great square of NSJ" -- in that center of community.