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1. On May 19th City
Council Meeting, the council members requested a redline copy comparing
the new General Plan to the 2005 General Plan. Councils agreed this is
necessary for both the councils and residents to review the changes in
the new general plan. Right now, the redline copy is still open for
public comments until the deadline of July 31. We shall not decide any
plan until after July 31. Without this clear vision, it is
irresponsible to start the VALLCO PROJECT. We are still in discussion
of which policy and strategy should be kept in the new General Plan, it
is impossible to have an EIR done correctly before this review period by
July 31.
2. The
scope of the current EIR is not aligned with visions of most residents
and does not have sufficient community inputs. In the current agenda
item, the scope of EIR is defined as
● 2 million square feet of office,
●
800 housing units,
● 600,000 square feet of retail,
which is purely
based on the developer’s request. It is not the vision of Cupertino
residents! There is no community outreach done in forming this current
scope. In fact, a lot residents urged Councils to keep Vallco as only a
retail center, reported in the May 19 meeting . Moreover, city’s own
retail consultant also suggested to have a proforma review done to
verify if developer’s request is appropriate to keep the project
financially viable. Without proper investigation, without proper
community outreach, it is premature to start the EIR process with the
above scope.
3. Furthermore,
the above EIR scope is almost the same as the new EIR for the General
Plan, Community Vision 2040, which is ● 2 million square feet of office,
● 600 housing units,● 600,000 square feet of retail. But In this EIR,
it is already identified that traffic, air pollution and noise are
significant and have unavoidable impacts. Moreover, according to this
EIR, public infrastructure such as sewer system is already at the
maximal capacity around Vallco, it is not possible to sustain such
drastic development with the current infrastructure. With the latest
enrollment projection from school district, it is also very obvious that
such development will bring tremendous enrollment pressure on
neighborhood schools. Then, what is the purpose of spending such money
on this or earlier EIR? We must review the whole project concept of
both EIRs. We must have a solution of above problems for such a huge
project at Vallco.
4. The
bidding process of the contract is not open. There is no information
regarding how this particular contractor is selected. For such a
crucial project, we should take more caution and select the best
consultant we can find. I would urge councils to direct city staff to
have an open bidding process for the consultant when we are ready to
start the EIR process. City of San Jose was sued by state agency due to
underestimating greenhouse gas emission in its general plan and this
particular consultant happens to be the one who prepare the EIR for San
Jose.
5. The complexity of the project asks for more options to be included in the EIR. Vallco is the last piece of big land in Cupertino, not only serving Cupertino but also the huge area in South San Jose valley. The potential and possibilities are as huge as the challenges. Even when we are ready to start the EIR, we should have more options for comparison. Above all, we should further analyze the option of keeping Vallco mainly as a retail center. With all the developments around Vallco, there may be opportunity to increase the existing retail square footage at Vallco. All potential options should be thoroughly studied and evaluate.
In summary, the city and the
residents are not ready to start Vallco planning yet. For the healthy
growth of the city, we must first have a clear vision on the General
Plan before any discussion on Vallco. Please hold off the approval of
any negotiation and budget on a Vallco EIR.
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