Liang - Vallco impact on future development. No capacity for more.

From: Liang C
Date: Sun, Nov 15, 2015 at 10:05 PM
Subject: Comment on Vallco EIR - impact on future development in Cupertino
To: "City of Cupertino Planning Dept." <planning@cupertino.org>

RE: Comment on Vallco EIR

Please study the impact of The Hills at Vallco on the future development of Cupertino.

Please study the capacity of the sewage and water system to sustain future development in Cupertino before a major expensive system expansion. Would The Hills at Vallco use up all capacity in the system so that any future development is not possible without expensive system upgrade?

The massive development of 2 million square feet of office, way beyond the capacity of Cupertino, could prevent future development in Cupertino for the next 25 years since all the infrastructures are either saturated or overflowed by this development. Any future development would require significantly expensive infrastructure expansion; thus, preventing any more development in Cupertino.

Please study the capacity of more office development in other areas of Cupertino.

Please study the option of spreading office development to other areas of Cupertino, instead of within one block of Apple Campus 2, one of the largest office park in Silicon Valley.

A major corporation (with sales office in Cupertino to generate sales tax) would prefer a separate campus for brand recognition and also for security reasons. Please study the possibility of any major corporation to set up a stand-alone office in the future, once The Hills at Vallco is built.

With 2 million square feet of office from Vallco, the office space in Cupertino will increase by 50% within 5 years. And together with 3.5 million s.f. from Apple Campus 2 and 260,000 s.f. from Main Street, that's equivalent to 133 years of office growth from the analysis below:

In 2010, ABAG estimates that the office space in Cupertino will increase by 43,300 square feet per year.
Cupertino will have an addition of 3.5 million square feet of new office space opening in 2017 from Apple Campus 2 alone.
Main Street already added 260,000 square feet of office space, just opened in 2014.
The Hills at Vallco will add another 2 million square feet of new office space.
That's 5.76 million square feet of additional new office space on top of the current commute flow.
(Note: Apple Campus 2 may have only added 750,000 square feet in terms of office allocation in Cupertino's General Plan. But the fact remains that the 3.5 million square feet of new office will be added on top of the current housing demand and commute flow.)

3,500,000 s.f./43,300 s.f. per year= 80.8 years

5,760,000s.f./ 43,300 s.f. per year = 133 years

The office space added to Apple Campus 2 is equivalent to 80.8 years of office according to ABAG's estimation of 43,400 s.f. per year of office growth.
The office space added from Apple Campus 2, Main Street and Vallco will be equivalent to 133 years of office growth according to ABAG's estimation of 43,400 s.f. per year of office growth.

The transportation infrastructure has a limited capacity since the highway is limited by the number of lanes and even the proposed BRT lines could only transport a few hundred people per day. It is very costly and time consuming to expand the capacity of transportation infrastructure. Therefore, allowing 2 million square feet of office in one project practically means taking away the possibility of future office development in Cupertino by 2 million square feet. Other property owners in Cupertino with lands already zoned for office or mixed use with office would not be able to build more office.

A major corporation (with sales office in Cupertino to generate sales tax) would prefer a separate campus for brand recognition and also for security reasons. It is unlikely that a major corporation would want to rent office space in The Hills at Vallco. Yet, since The Hills at Vallco took away the capacity of Cupertino to accommodate more office in the next 133 years, would the infrastructure of Cupertino be able to sustain more office development, especially by a major corporation?

From the EIR for GPA, the capacity for sewage system is already up to the limit, specially in the Wolfe and Blaney area. Even if Cupertino is able to acquire more capacity at this point. How much more can the system take?

Liang Chao