Prior to Mayor Reed, the City of San Jose would amend the General Plan (GP) approximately seven to twelve times a year; which equates to about once every month, give or take. During this time, about 1,200 acres of industrial land were converted to residential housing. As a result, the City lost 1,200 acres of land that could have been home to jobs. A sizable percentage of the 1,200 acres was in my district.
Since 2007, the City hears GP changes twice a year. With the adoption of the conversion policy (which provides a process for land zoning conversion) the council hears far fewer amendments regarding changing industrial zoning to residential.
Last Tuesday, the council had the Fall GP Hearing. This meeting continued past midnight and covered a litany of land use situations, some of which are listed below:
• Transit oriented development on the periphery of Downtown.
This item moved forward with unanimous support.
• Revitalization of two strip malls with the addition of housing in Evergreen and another on Hillsdale Ave.
Both these items moved forward with unanimous support.
• Infill development of 35 executive homes next to Silver Creek.
This item moved forward with unanimous support.
• Church locating in an industrial area.
This issue was approved with a 9-2 vote, with Vice Mayor Chirco and myself voting against it. (I voted against it because it does not conform to our GP and ends up creating a domino effect of converting the adjacent industrial parcels over time.)
Most of these items will be back before the Council one more time during the zoning process for the final details like architecture, lot sizes, height, parking, etc…
Scroll down and select the meeting to view. The agenda for that specific meeting will come up and you can jump to that particular agenda item to hear what was said.