Liang - Comments on BVA for SQL

From: Liang Chao
Date: Fri, Oct 27, 2017 at 11:00 PM
Subject: Comments on BVA for SQL
To: 9-awp-sql-cvfp@faa.gov
Cc: info@rokhanna.com, council@sunnyvale.ca.gov, City Council <citycouncil@cupertino.org>, dave.cortese@bos.sccgov.org, supervisor.simitian@bos.sccgov.org, Dennis.Roberts@faa.gov

1. The only information available for the public to comment on BVA for SQL appears to be only from the webpage: https://www.faa.gov/nextgen/communityengagement/sql. My comment is limited to the information available to me. If there is any other information not revealed by FAA or SQL for the public to comment, I reserve the right to submit more comments based on new information available to me at a later time. On the webpage, there were two obscure images and three documents:
1. SQL Charted Visual Flight Procedure Briefing (PDF) - only presentation without much text information and without any speaker notes.
2. SQL Community Workshop (PDF) - only text information without any speaker note.
3. SQL Fact Sheet (PDF)

2. The BVA for SQL page at FAA.gov did not specify what is the existing flight path to SQL at all. Any impact report should evaluate the “No Change” option. What would be the existing flight path? This should be clearly and factually stated in the impact report for transparency and accountability. By NOT providing any information on the existing flight path taken by SurfAir in 2015 or earlier, FAA is depriving me of my right to make a fully informed comment on this BVA flight path.

3. The FAA website on BVA for SQL states “Pilots must have a charted visual landmark or a preceding aircraft in sight, and weather must be at or above the published minimums.” From the definition of BVA, it is prone to human error and potential misuse, just like traffic accidents always happen. Please evaluate the potential impact of human error (not paying attention, for example) and the potential impact of potential human misuse (not following rules). Please estimate the potential impact of accidents when using BVA on property and human lives.
4. The FAA website on BVA for SQL states “When following a preceding aircraft, pilots are responsible for maintaining a safe approach interval and wake turbulence separation. Pilots must advise ATC if they are unable at any point to continue a charted visual approach or if the pilot loses sight of the preceding aircraft.” From such description, the safety of BVA is subject to pilte judgement. How would the discipline of pilots be ensured? What would be the penalty if the pilot did not follow the prescribed procedure or take the stated precaution? What instruments would there be to detect such violation of stated safety requirements? What would be the impact on human lives and property damages if there is any pilot error, intentional or not, detected or not?
5. This figure from “SQL_Charted_Visual_Flight_Procedure_Briefing.pdf” shows that the BVA path would cut through Cupertino.

But the image on the FAA website showed an intentionally obscure image without showing the path cutting through Cupertino. The image on the website is very misleading or one might think it is not truthful. Many members of the public might not have commented due to this obscure, possibly untruthful image.

6. This figure from “SQL_Charted_Visual_Flight_Procedure_Briefing.pdf” shows that the BVA path would cut through Cupertino, shown above. However, according to another source, we are aware that the previous flight did not cut through Cupertino. The previous flight path (Blue path below) only pass through a tiny corner of Cupertino. Please evaluate the impact on Cupertino area with the change from Blue Path to Red Path. If you argue that the Blue path is not the previous flight path, do please provide the flight paths going through Cupertino for the past 10 years to show how the flight paths have been modified or not modified with clear documents. (It seems it has been hard for the public to find out exactly what flight paths have been changed. Please provide clear documentation.)
7. 

• Please consider a few options, except the red path, as shown:
1. Approach SQL from the west mountain area to avoid going through densely populated South Bay cities, such as Cupertino, Sunnyvale, Mountain View or Palo Alto. (Preferred)
2. Approach SQL from any direction, but only go through cities in San Mateo County to avoid complications with shifting noise to Santa Clara County. (Preferred)
3. No change. Follow the Blue path.
4. Use the blue path from southwest to the waypoint in Sunnyvale and then take the BVA path.
5. Move BVA path going through North Sunnyvale a little bit west so that it follows Rt 85 to reduce the number of residential homes impacted. Also reduce the number of homes which are impacted by multiple sources of airplane noise, especially South Flow from San Jose Airport.

If multiple options have similar impacts in terms of safety, please consider the density of population living under the flight path and consider the cumulative impact from multiple airports when selecting one flight path to use.

If the two preferred paths (a and b) are not considered, please provide ample reasons with documents that those two paths would not be safe under FAA standards. Possible noise towards existing community is not a reason for not considering an option since all options affect some community.

8. The "SQL_Fact_Sheet" by FAA specifies that "The FAA does not own aircraft, nor governs how many flight operations an airport chooses to conduct before reaching airport maximum operating capacity." Since the FAA has no way to limit the number of flights eventually would use BVA, the impact analysis report should evaluate the impact on safety and environment (such as pollution and noise) for both moderate use and maximum use.
1. Since FAA has no way to limit the number of flights flying over Cupertino and Sunnyvale to and from all other airports, such as San Jose Airport, Oakland Airport, Palo Alto airport, San Francisco airport and Moffet Tower. In the impact analysis report of BVA for SQL, please analyze the maximum impact from all airports so that you can get a realistic impact a few years later when the operation of all these airports expand to accommodate the economic and population growth of Silicon Valley. For San Jose airport, please especially evaluate the impact on South Flow days in the worst case.

9. SQL is located in San Carlos. The income from SQL goes into the city of San Carlos. The residents of San Carlos and San Mateo County have a direct communication with SQL and Sur Air in case there is any issue on issues like curfew or noise reduction measures. However, residents in remote cities like Cupertino or Sunnyvale, located in Santa Clara County, do not have a direct communication with SQL or San Mateo County, as it has been proven again and again. Voices from Cupertino and Sunnyvale have been ignore in the past and they will be ignored in the future until it escalates. Therefore, using a flight path that goes through more cities and more counties create future administrative problems in case of complaints and especially on supervision on whether pilots are following specified requirements and time schedule.
1. Please estimate the amount of extra administrative cost for flights landing in SQL to go through South Bay cities, such as the cost to contact all city and county governments and cost of involving all city residents.
2. Please also provide strategies you will use to ensure that voices from all cities will be included in any future operational change in SQL, such as an increase in the number of flights or change in flying schedule.
3. Please also provide strategies for two-way communications with residents of other cities so that the frustration we have experienced in 2016-17 would be avoided.
4. Since San Mateo County and SQL airport are the parties who will benefit financially from Sur Air flights, please disclose the financial benefits to these parties annual now and projected benefits as the airport expands.

10. Complaint-based noise impact analysis is unscientific and inaccurate for the following reasons:
1. The result tends to be biased towards affluent neighborhoods and against neighborhoods whose residents do not have the time nor technology to file complaints.
2. In an area like Cupertino and Sunnyvale, there are multiple sources of airplanes going through our air space. We are required to identify the destination of each flight producing noise and then go to the website of the specific airport to complain. This is not only time consuming, but also impossible for people who do not have the technical knowledge to file complaints. Then, once complaints are filed, the airports like SQL and San Jose find other ways to disqualify complaints. But airplane noise on a flight path should NOT be measured by complaints in the first place.
3. If the same flights flying at the same distance get lots of complaints when going through San Carlos, you should expect the same number or even more complaints when the same flight goes through Sunnyvale since the population density there is higher. You should not depend on the number of complaints to evaluate a new flight path.
4. The areas near North Sunnyvale more heavily impacted by airplane noise due to lower altitude and when the plane changes direction should be more heavily impacted. However, that area tends to be the area whose residents might not have the time or technical knowledge to file complaints.
11. There are scientific methods to estimate noises from an airplane, according to the height, speech and whether the airplane is making a turn or not. FAA should use scientific methods to evaluate the noise impact on residential neighborhoods whenever possible. Here are some suggestions:
1. Install scientific equipments to measure airplane noises. If Sur Air or San Mateo County are requesting the flight path change, they could pay for the equipment for the measurements on both the previous flight path and the proposed one and maybe other alternative flight path. It’s only fair.
2. Take a random survey of 100 people from each geographical area with similar economic background. Assume that they heard a flight pass by with a noise they would like to complain. Seel how many of them would be able to figure out whether the plane goes to SQL or not. See how many of them would be able to figure out how to correctly file a complaint to SQL specifically. If 2 out of 100 can file a complaint to SQL correctly, you should multiply the number of complaints you receive by 50.
3. An airplane doesn’t appear out of nowhere. It follows a flight path. If there is one complaint filed by one household on the flight path, every household from that point to SQL should be automatically entered into the complaint database since the noise level experienced by the rest of the household could only be higher as the airplane descends towards SQL. A scientific method to measure noise should not be based on isolated sample.
12. Please specify the method FAA has deployed to inform residents impacted by BVA about this BVA for SQL proposal. I only heard about BVA from private social media group. There has been no notification from my city government. No postcards from anyone. No news or radio or any other announcement to inform residents on the commenting period.
13. Once established, would BVA be used by any other flights going into other airports? If so, please evaluate the noise and risk impact assuming the maximum usage of BVA.
14. Many Cupertino and Sunnyvale residents were not aware of the 6-month trial period for BVA. Some became aware of it due to the increase in noise, but they did not know how or that they could complain until much later. As a result, any “complaint-based” measurement on noise would significantly underestimate the noise impact due a lack of information.
15. FAA told the audience that they would not change flight path to move noise from one community to the next. But this slide below from San Mateo County says otherwise. It shows that BVA is intended to reduce impact for 140,000 residents in San Mateo County. But BVA the red path, as shown above, would impact Cupertino and Sunnyvale with similar population. San Mateo County certainly did not involve the public in Santa Clara County until the very end of that process, when a new flight path was proposed.

If the purpose of BVA is to shift airplane noise to another community, especially who already suffer from airplane noises of multiple airports, FAA should not even consider such a new flight path since it is against the stated FAA principal.

Randy - Stevens Creek Urban Village Plan "Hacks" Will Affect Cupertino

rom: Randy S
Date: Fri, Aug 25, 2017 at 2:52 PM
Subject: Stevens Creek Urban Village Plan "hacks"
To: svaidhyanathan@cupertino.org, Darcy Paul <dpaul@cupertino.org>, bchang@cupertino.org, rsinks@cupertino.org, sscharf@cupertino.org
Cc: David Brandt <Davidb@cupertino.org>, City Attorney's Office <CityAttorney@cupertino.org>, City Clerk <cityclerk@cupertino.org>, Aarti Shrivastava <AartiS@cupertino.org>, piug@cupertino.org

Dear Cupertino Mayor and Council,

San Jose likes to characterize its Stevens Creek Urban Village Plan (SCUVP) as some sort of "overarching" development plan for San Jose's portion of Stevens Creek Boulevard, but I have a different view.  The planned hotel at the corner of Stern and Stevens Creek at the San Jose City Limits is an example of how the SCUVP is more of a vehicle for enabling building than it is a tool for planning development.

San Diego's Oliver Family purchased the proposed "Stern Hotel" site in February 2017.  Within a month of the purchase, the site's land use in the draft SCUVP was changed from Neighborhood/Community Commercial to Urban Village Commercial.   The maximum floor area ration (FAR) for Neighborhood/Community Commercial is 3.5.  The maximum FAR for Urban Village Commercial is 7.  The change allowed the maximum FAR at the hotel site to go from 3.5 to 7.  That effectively enables the building of the 6 story hotel being proposed.

Here are land use maps from 1/19/17 and 3/9/17.  Note the color change at the corner of Stern and Stevens Creek.

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B-t-isgqFFeObW1mZWY0eUNfSnc

http://www.sanjoseca.gov/DocumentCenter/View/67619

​After the draft SCUVP was submitted to the San Jose Planning Commission, City Staff recommended 4 additional last minute amendments to the plan.  This is a link to the Staff recommended amendments.

​

http://sanjose.granicus.com/MetaViewer.php?view_id=&event_id=2696&meta_id=646521

​3 out of 4 of the Staff recommended amendments were specifically to enable the approval of the "Stern Hotel."

• The definition of "Commercial Use" was amended to specifically include "hotel."
• Setback Standard #3 was changed from a "standard" to a "guideline."  A "guideline" is something that doesn't have to be followed.  That means that there is effectively no Setback & Stepbacks Standard #3.
• Architectural projections and roof top equipment are now allowed to extend up to 10 feet above the maximum height limit.  The height limit on the corner of Stern and Stevens Creek is 85'.  The proposed "Stern Hotel" is 90' with its "architectural projections." 

​Without the Stevens Creek Urban Village Plan, the approval of the hotel proposed at the corner of Stern and Stevens Creek would have faced obstacles.  With the plan, the hotel approval is virtually guaranteed.  ​This didn't go unnoticed.  In the comment letter from the City of Santa Clara's attorney to San Jose, Ms. Tina Thomas wrote about the unintended consequences of Planning Staff's expediency:

Moreover, the Urban Village Plans further refine the types of uses that are allowed and

anticipated within the Plan areas. For example, within the Stevens Creek Urban Village, the City

of San Jose proposes to define “commercial uses” to include hotels. Virtually every land use

category within the Stevens Creek Urban Village authorizes “commercial uses.” Thus, the City

of San Jose appears to be authorizing hotels to be constructed anywhere within the Stevens

Creek Urban Village. While Envision San Jose 2040 contemplated hotels as an allowed use

within the Urban Village Commercial designation, it did not contemplate hotels within other land

use designations included within the Stevens Creek Urban Village Plan area. 

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B1koFObMmxp-ZFdLakg2N0NHY0U/view

​I hope that you take the time to consider how bad the SCUVP will be for Cupertino and the area bordering San Jose along Stevens Creek.

Thank you,

Randy S

San Jose resident

Liana - Cupertino Voters Rejected Office Allocation and Urban Density When They Voted Down Measure D

From: Liana Crabtree
Sent: Friday, October 13, 2017 12:12 PM
To: Savita Vaidhyanathan <svaidhyanathan@cupertino.org>; Darcy Paul <DPaul@cupertino.org>; Barry Chang <BChang@cupertino.org>; Steven Scharf <SScharf@cupertino.org>; Rod Sinks <RSinks@cupertino.org>
Cc: Cupertino City Manager's Office <manager@cupertino.org>; City Clerk <CityClerk@cupertino.org>; goldmancouncil@sunnyvale.ca.gov
Subject: Cupertino Voters Rejected Office Allocation and Urban Density When They Voted Down Measure D

Dear Mayor Viadhyanathan, Vice Mayor Paul, and Council Members Chang, Scharf, and Sinks:

Please include this letter as part of the public record related to the redevelopment of the Vallco Shopping District site.

In the October 6, 2017 edition of the Cupertino Courier, Reed Moulds, a managing director with Sand Hill Property Company (SHP), was quoted as saying, “Through Measure D we also learned, despite many benefits and a well-received design, that not everyone has become comfortable with 2 million square feet of office space.”

Reed Moulds offers a curious conclusion given that not one of the 23 mailers that came to my home (and I assume to the homes of my neighbors) promoting Measure D included any references to the 2 MILLION square feet of office or the 144-foot maximum structure height that were silent but significant parts of the Vallco Plan under Measure D.

Why flag 2 MILLION square feet of office as the villain that sank Measure D and ignore its urbanization twin--the 144-foot maximum structure height--that was every bit a part of failed Measure D as the office allocation? Consider that Measure D failed because by land use AND density it was an urban development proposal not suited to a suburban community with limited infrastructure and a strong family-friendly culture.

Consider that under Measure D, approximately 4.4 MILLION square feet of new structures on the Vallco Shopping District site would have been divvied up as follows:
Office/Office Support, 56%
Residential, 22%
Retail/Recreation, 16%
Hotel, 6%

All for the benefit of whom?

Related, Sunnyvale City Council Member Michael Goldman, who was elected in 2016 on a Sensible Growth platform, posted the following message on Nextdoor on 10/12/2017 in the thread called “Sand Hill Returns: Restarts Vallco Approval Process”:

NOTE: In accordance with Nextdoor use guidelines, Michael Goldman has given his permission to share his message outside of the Nextdoor social media environment.

“1. Can we assume that developers have thoroughly researched and planned things out and know what they are doing?

No, we can't. The most recent Nobel Prize in Economics has gone to a researcher who demonstrated the irrational behavior of people contrary to their own best interest. "People often make poor choices—and look back at them with bafflement!" (https://en..wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Thaler)

As evidence, I submit Sunnyvale's downtown. It was a very nice little downtown which, if allowed to grow organically, would have thrived and become a pleasant gathering place and shopping place for residents like Mountain View's. Instead much of it, including a charming city hall that would have made a nice art museum or visitors center, was torn down for a mall which failed miserably after the newness wore off. Then developer after developer tried to either revive it or replace it only to go into bankruptcy leaving Sunnyvale with uncompleted shells of apartments for many years. The last of these developers was Sand Hill Properties whose lawsuits with Wells Fargo dragged on for years delaying the completion of the empty shells.

I make no judgement about Sand Hill Properties, but to assume developers or city planners have any great insight into the wisdom of developing a site or into future economic trends is clearly contrary to the evidence of all those bankruptcy filings.

Numerous economic studies have shown that whether it is investments in rail-lines in the 19th century or startups in the 20th, much of it is random. A lot of the investments make no economic sense and ultimately fail. The ones that succeed are the ones we know about.

The business model for venture capitalists is that 5 of 10 investments will fail utterly, 4 will get by (sort of), and the 10th will do well enough to make up for the other 9. Companies make money betting on a 10% success rate of people knowing what they are doing. In most cases it doesn't matter, but if it is your home town it matters.

2. Why would a developer put up buildings when there is insufficient transit?

Because developers don't care. That is not part of their business plan. They can reasonably assume that if the city council allows it, the residents must be okay with a city council that allows it. Some cities (e.g., Los Gatos, Los Altos) elect city councils that simply say no to development.

Sand Hill Properties evidently underestimated local opposition to a development on El Camino and decided not to pursue it. They sold the property to De Anza Properties who is putting up a lower density development. De Anza Properties themselves initially floated a proposal for a 10 story apt. complex at Butcher's Corner. Public opposition (including from me) whittled it down considerably though many object to the development that did proceed. Developers will pursue their maximum profit, but they ultimately need the cooperation of city governments who to some degree respond to voters.

3. Why would developers put up apartments if there is no possibility of renting them because people won't move there because of inadequate transit?

The average apartment dweller stays 2 years. 70% move within 3 years. People will put up with a lot if they know it is only for a few years. (Also, they may not know how bad the transit is until they move there.) Those who expect to live in the city longer may have different views on transit and development and will vote accordingly.
When I referred to cities reaching a natural limit I left the impression that it was all self-regulating. I apologize for that. It is self-regulating in that people vote with their feet but they also vote at elections and when enough people can't stand it any more they vote for candidates that represent that view. Money from interested parties can tip the scales but at some point even that isn't enough.

In CA, people have been voting with their feet for decades. Except for a brief time during the dot-com bubble there has been a net migration of US residents out of CA since the the 1970s. Only foreign immigration has kept CA's population increasing. Even with that, the point where the period of endless growth of population may be coming to an end.

Limits to growth examined here: http://meetingthetwain.blogspot.com/2017/04/limits-to-growth.html

Nothing lasts forever.”

Thank you for your consideration of my letter and of Michael Goldman’s observations as you weigh the content of the next proposal for the Vallco Shopping District against the needs and interests of your electorate, the resident community.

Sincerely,

Liana Crabtree

Cupertino resident

REFERENCE

"Vallco Mall: Sandhill Wants to Work with the City Again on Potential Site Plans" by Matt Wilson, Cupertino Courier, 10/6/2017:
mercurynews.ca.newsmemory.com/publink.php?shareid=0ba4fa74c