Controversial Park Fees Proposal

San Jose's parks department proposes to allow diversion of "developer park in lieu fees" from public parks to projects like mountain bike trails, equestrian trails, dog runs, and structures for theater productions and dance recitals

A city council committee ("Driving A Strong Economy Committee") will consider the proposal on 1/24/05 at 3:00 PM in room 204 of city hall. This is the most important event to attend if you can attend only one. At this meeting you will see city council members discuss and vote. They will allow only two minutes for any testimony so if you have remarks of longer duration, please bring written comments for the record. Again, watch for discussion of
diversion's impact.

Effects of Park Fees Diversion
The diversion of "developer park in lieu fees" represents a serious danger to our city's park development program. At this time, city policy requires developers to dedicate three acres of park for every 1,000 new residents living in the developer's new housing project. City rules provide that the developer may pay in lieu fees to the city if they think they cannot afford the land for the new park.

In practice this means that developers rarely provide adequate parks on sites of new housing projects, and instead negotiate in lieu fees with the city which are paid into a park trust fund and languish there for up to five years. The park trust fund has approximately $100,000,000 in unspent fees, and the city is already slow in using these funds to develop public park lands.

A second problem with the proposal is that neighbors will quarrel, for example, over whether they want a trail for equestrians, a dance recital hall, or a dog run. Neighborhoods will split over these expenditures, conflict will emerge, and neighborhood associations will be destroyed by this issue. We need adequate parklands for all residents -- we do not need to engage in community brawling over which project should receive funding. Let's ask the city council to keep "developer park in lieu fees" for parks only.

Berryessa BART Station Rezoning
The home page of the planning department's web site has announced a community meeting about its plans for rezoning the flea market site adjacent to
the proposed Berryessa BART station on Berryessa Road for a "mixed-use transit-oriented neighborhood." The meeting will be at the Berryessa Community Center at 3050 Berryessa Road at 6:30 PM on Thursday, 1/20/05. No fewer than 2,500 dwellings are to be crowded onto fewer than 120 acres under "transit corridor density" rules (no upper limit). Here are six good questions for the community meeting.

1) If you add 7,500 new residents (2,500 new dwellings times an average of 3 residents per dwelling) in this small space, where will you put the required 22.5 acres of public parks? A park this size would be about 2/3 the size of Cataldi Park east of North Capitol Avenue.

2) What protections (police, fire, ambulances, stop lights, crossing guards, street & sidewalk lighting, etc.) will be offered new and existing neighbors when crime, drugs, and gangs spike near the BART station, just as they do at most BART stations? The very large parking structure planned for the station area will be a perfect setting for nighttime gang fights and other nefarious activities.

3) How will you accommodate the massive influx of motorists on Old Oakland Road, Berryessa Road, Mabury Road, North King Road, Commodore Street, North Jackson Avenue, Taylor Street, and Commercial Road? How will this increase in motorists be handled in view of the city's embrace of intersection congestion along North Capitol Avenue?

4) What are the plans for medical, dental, commercial, retail, industrial, and educational buildings?

5) What happens if and when BART does not go to Berryessa Road? Even now, the implementation date has been pushed back to 2014 for BART to reach Berryessa Road.

6) How can you guarantee that a Berryessa BART station will not look like the Fremont BART station? If you make promises about the quality of life adjacent to the Berryessa BART station, kindly let us know one example of "transit corridor" development of this size in Santa Clara Valley that already embodies these promises.

Dale Warner
SOS Secretary