No Rezoning of Vallco and Many Questions by Carrie O.

From: Carrie O.
Date: Tue, Oct 6, 2015 at 12:07 PM
Subject: City Council Meeting Questions re: No Rezoning of Vallco
To: citycouncil@cupertino.org
Cc: cityclerk@cupertino.org, info@thehillsatvallco.com

To whom it may concern,

I'm writing to express my antipathy for the plan to re-zone the Vallco Shopping Mall into a mixed use space in any way.  I'm hoping my email letter here will be entered into the record as a set of concerns pertaining to your City Council Meeting tonight regarding the ongoing possibilities of rezoning the Vallco space from it's current Retail Only status.  

As a resident of the Rancho Rinconada neighborhood, my family will be immediately impacted by any changes made to the zoning of Vallco.  

For your records, I would like to see the following at the Vallco site:

 - Instead of changing Vallco from the Retail-Only model it is currently zoned for, I would like the mall developed as it is - Shops and more shops, with upgraded aesthetics and favorable leasing to attract stores, and only stores.

In addition to my stated interest as a close resident to Vallco, I'd like answers to these questions regarding the process going forward:

 1. Are you aware that the proposed 2 million square foot of new, un-zoned for office space or the 800 new un-zoned for apartment homes are *out of sight* on the direct mail advertising of the Hills at Vallco?  

 - Do you think these mailers are accurate and useful to the public, without disclosing the proposed re-zoning and the amount of new office and housing added to our neighborhood, at the expense of retail and at the expense of quality of life for residents?

2. How will you address mine and other's concerns, when you have recently passed changes to your process that allow new projects to be proposed and permitted 'at your discretion'?

- What were the needs you were addressing in adopting such a business-friendly approach to city development?

- What cities have used this model before?  

- What challenges do you see for policing yourselves with this amount of 'discretionary' power?

3. How will you off-set the huge disparity to Cupertino High School if you allow the 800 apartment houses to be built?  

- As I understand it, Lynbrook has 1000 students currently, while Cupertino High has 1800 - already an inequitable number.  If this unwanted Hills at Vallco is built, I've seen projections for Cupertino High of up to 2800.  

- Are you prepared to bus students to other campuses or enact other measures to bring numbers for the high school densities inline across FUHSD?

4.  What part of the development and permitting process allowed for the adjustments, after the fact, to the Main Street project so that approved Senior Housing, the Park, and the Exercise Club were removed and replaced with Office Space?

- How can we avoid seeing changes like this in future developments?

5. Sandhill Developers have had significant difficulties working successfully to plan on the Sunnyvale Downtown development and on Cupertino's Main Street.  Why are you working with them after two notable and major failures?

6. Major traffic, sewage, water use, air pollution, and school overcrowding are the inevitable challenges caused by the proposed Hills at Vallco.  Why are you allowing Sandhill to continue stating in advertising mailers that they'll work with all involved to mitigate these concerns when they have a record that shows the opposite?

Sincerely,

Carrie O.