Impacts of High Density Living Brought by the Vallco Project, by Yan

Dear City council officers, Happy Monday!
 

I am very concerned about the Vallco project. I would like to ask this correspondence to be included in the public records
 

High density living brought by the Vallco project shall have direct and indirect impacts on health and wellbeing of residents living in and near the Cupertino Area. Direct impacts include air quality, climate, water quality, noise, insufficient capacity from existing Cupertino city and community service infrastructure. Indirect impacts affect more distal determinants of health, such as social connections, access to services and restricted physical activity imposed by high density living.

Among residents of all ages, children and older people are particularly impacted by and vulnerable to these detrimental effects. For example, seniors and children are particularly vulnerable to traffic accidents and increased crimes brought by high density living. I am wondering whether the Cupertino city or Vallcos developers have a concrete plan to address those issues satisfactorily before any Vallco rebuilt plan can be approved by the city? 

I heard that the vallco project includes 800+ residential units, which would imply a few thousands (up to five thousand) new residents to Cueprtino, which is up to significant 8% (5000/60000 based on 2013 data) of existing Cupertino population. 

 

I am interested to know more details about this project. For example, how many people of various types would it bring in? how much more rush hour traffic and non-rush hour traffic it would incur?  How many more school-aged kids it would incur to increase load on the already strained school system.  How much more demand it would put on the existing service infrastructure, e.g., fire/police department, library, community service, school system, transportation system, etc.

 

If we need to boost up existing city infrastructure to meet greatly increased demand, who is going to pay for the infrastructure and staff upgrade?  Is the developer going to pay for this?  Or it comes from existing property tax and sale tax? Cupertino residents and tax payers have rights to know all the developmental implications and details to make sure that Cupertino city is still a desirable livable city.   The reason that I bought a house in Cupertino is because I thought Cupertino is a nice place to live. However, I start to have serious doubts on this now with many recent high-density developmental plans.  The new Apple building already increased office space and local traffic dramatically, I hope the city could be cautious, responsible and hold accountable on any new future development plan.  At this point, as a very concerned and responsible Cupertino resident, I object to any vollco rezoning plan that involves increasing residential or office space.

 

If the city needs help in understanding and researching the issue, I am very happy to help.  I would love to be present in any such future planning meeting.  Please let me know how can I help.

Best,

 

yan 

PS. I hope city could hold regular town hall meetings at a convenient hour (e.g., evening or weekends as opposed to midnight) to educate and address the concerns from Cupertino residents on this issue, and make concerned residents part of the decision process since any decision would greatly impact their lives in many years to come.