Rescind "Community Vision 2040" - It's Your Moral Obligation, by Xiaowen

Xiaowen asked the Council to rescind Resolution 14-211, which contains "Community Vision 2040."

"Community Vision 2040" removed a lot of policies, including job-housing balance and put in a lot of policies, including Priority Development Area. Both were never discussed during any "extensive" outreach meetings in the last 27 months.

Xiaowen pleaded "I understand that whatever you said before midnight Dec. 3, 2014 may not be legally binding, but as elected officials, you at least have the moral obligations to all the voters, do what your words mean."

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From: Xiaowen Wang
Date: Fri, May 15, 2015 at 8:46 AM
Subject: [Better Cupertino WG] Resolution 14-211 on Dec. 4, 2014
To: City Clerk <cityclerk@cupertino.org>, City Council <citycouncil@cupertino.org>, City Attorney's Office <CityAttorney@cupertino.org>, David Brandt davidb@cupertino.org

Dear City Councils,

After carefully comparing the current GPA Community Vision 2040 and the previous General Plan, I realized that this GPA is not an amendment but a completely rewrite. Hence I would ask you to rescind resolution 14-211 on Dec. 4, 2014 because this is not what you promised to do during this long meeting when everybody were still awake.

 

I was at the Dec. 3, 2014 City Council meeting together with hundreds of my fellow citizens. We all heard from councils that you were not going to make decisions on GPA on that meeting, but to postpone the decision to a later day in order to get more community inputs and also give the two new council members more time to understand the matter. Most of people left before midnight. I was there until 1am. Even before I left, the discussion was still about raise the height limit for a few housing element sites to satisfy the state mandate on housing element. When I left, I was under the impression that this was the last item on the agenda. 

 

However I was disappointed when I found out the complete rewrite of General Plan was actually approved on Dec. 4, 2014 with resolution 14-211. But still under the impression that this is just a placeholder and we are going to go through the all the issues later. With that in mind, I actively participated the workshop and city council meeting in hoping that we, the community and city councils are working together  for a better plan for our city. The recent staff report make me realize that most of part of GPA was already casted in stone. This is really not what the councils promised to the citizens at the Dec. 3/4 meeting. The promise before 1am was that only state mandated Housing Element would be discussed and changes to the general plan would be made per Housing Element requirement.

 

If you look at the current document, a lot of policies in the 2000 - 2020 General Plan were taken out as well as a lot of policies were put in. For example, in the 2000-2020 General Plan, job-housing balance is an important policy, however, this policy was taken out of the General Plan. Similarly, in the new Community Vision 2040, a lot of language (more than one page) is about the Priority Development Area. However, such deletions and assertions have nothing to do with the required Housing Element. Without any discussion on the council meeting, all these important changes just slipped through when you all agree to just discuss only part  related to Housing Element. Moreover, neither the deletion of job-housing balance nor assertion of PDA is discussed during the so called 27 month "extensive" community outreach. I wonder do you really think that this is an appropriate act for a good government?

 

I hereby urge you to consider rescind the resolution 14-211 and do what you promised to hundreds of citizens that day, i.e., only make relevant changes on General Plan to make it consistent with required Housing Element. I understand that whatever you said before midnight Dec. 3, 2014 may not be legally binding, but as elected officials, you at least have the moral obligations to all the voters, do what your words mean.

Thank you very much. 

 

Xiaowen Wang 

Cupertino residents

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