Liang - 2/3 Residential = 389 Units or 800 Units

From: Liang C
Date: Sun, Mar 11, 2018 at 11:55 PM
Subject: 2/3 Residential = 389 Units or 800 Units
To: "City of Cupertino Planning Dept." <planning@cupertino.org>

RE: Vallco Shopping District Specific Plan (NOT Vallco Special Area, which doesn't exist in the General Plan)

One of the options listed by the EIR consultant is "2/3 residential and 1/3 non-residential".

No units are specified. Any reasonable person would assume that the 2/3 residential refers to either 389 units allocated in the 2040 General Plan or the 800 units as described as a possibility, pending Council approval, in the NOP.

The Zoning Map as of today shows Vallco Shopping District is zoned P(CG) and P(Regional Shopping).

No residential zoning on any parcel. Anyone who wants to justify 35 units per acre for the entire 58-acre site is on shaky ground since the Council had never shown any intention to rezone the entire Vallco Shopping District site with residential use and the Council has never taken any action to do so.

As pointed out in the enclosed email to the City Council, the Council should only rezone a parcel of the size 11.11 acre to accommodate 389 units per acre.

In case the Council takes any action to transfer units from the rest of Cupertino to Vallco to make up 800 units, the Council should rezone more parcels to accommodate 411 more units then. Not BEFORE.

Of course, since the residential units could be transferred to other parcels, the 389 units could be

transferred to a large site, say 20 acres, but the residential density should be lowered to 20 units/acre to match the allocation. In light of SB 35, which would ignore max unit allocation, the Council should set a tighter objective in the Zoning so that there is no ambiguity as to the residential density at Vallco Shopping District.

I am sure that the EIR consultants and consultants for Vallco Shopping District Specific Plan would carefully interpret the General Plan and respect the Zoning Map so that they don't inadvertently exceed the standards set by Cupertino City Council, 389 units specifically. It is best to avoid the perception that the consultants somehow relaxed the standards set by the City Council to please the developer or any outside advocates.

Thank you.

Liang Chao

Cupertino Resident

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Liang-Fang Chao <lfchao@gmail.com>
Date: Tue, Mar 6, 2018 at 3:01 PM
Subject: No More Free Giveaway to Developer. Rezone Minimal Required to Residential Use. No Office Use. Please.
To: City Council <citycouncil@cupertino.org>, "City of Cupertino Planning Dept." <planning@cupertino.org>, David Brandt <davidb@cupertino.org>

Dear City Council, Planning Commissioners, Vallco Planners and City Manager,

The City Council set a deadline for the provisional allocation at Vallco Shopping District area of May 31, 2018 because the city planners told the City Council that they have until that date to make the final decision. It seems the City Council will miss the deadline. I was also told by a city planner that the deadline to rezone Vallco, according to HCD, is in fact earlier than May 31, perhaps May 4. In that case, shouldn't the deadline to make a decision on Vallco Shopping District be moved up to early May? If no plan is approved, the provisional residential allocation and office allocation should be removed. That was the promise made by the City Council in December 2014 that the provisional allocation will expire. Any intention to keep that promise at all?

Even if the City Council wishes to extend the deadline for the provisional allocation at Vallco Shopping District, the Council should not give MORE FREE GIVEAWAY to Sand Hill by rezoning the entire Vallco Shopping District site to allow THOUSANDS of HOUSING UNITS BEFORE the approval of Vallco Shopping District Specific Plan. The FREE GIVEAWAY of 2 million square feet of office space without sufficient public input already caused us so much headache over the past three years, while the developer gave no promise of any community benefits at all. NO MORE FREE GIVEAWAYS, please.

When the description of a special area includes a certain land use, it does not require that the entire special area needs to be rezoned to include that land use designation. It is perfectly legal and common for parcels in a special area to have different land use designations. For example, the Vallco Shopping District site has two different zoning designations: P(CG) and P(Regional Shopping). Therefore, it is perfectly legal and common to rezone ONLY ONE parcel to P(CG,R) to allow residential use. JUST ONE.

The provisional residential allocation for Vallco Shopping District is 389 units. The Council ONLY needs to rezone enough parcels in the area to allow 389 units. NO MORE.

With 35 units per acre, the Council only needs to rezone 11,11 acres to include residential resignations. NO MORE.

In light of the 2017 pro-housing laws, it is essential that the Council sets clear and objective standards when rezoning parcels to include residential use.

There is no need to rezone the entire 58 acres of Vallco Shopping District to include residential use. Such grand-scale rezoning will cause confusion and community distrust and it is not consistent with the residential allocation of 389 units in the approved General Plan.

Vallco Shopping District contains about 13 parcels. See the attached map. Some are as small as 2 or 3 acres. The largest appears to be 12.4 acres. There is no need at all to rezone ALL parcels in the Vallco Shopping District to include residential use. Only 11.11 acres is necessary to fulfill HCD's requirement.

Furthermore, there is not need to rezone ANY site to include office use at all before May 2018. It is quite common for the zoning map to not completely agree with the General Plan as the land use map reflects the General Plan. Zoning Map could be updated later when the Vallco Specific Plan is actually approved with office use.

Note that the current P(CG) Zoning in some part of Vallco Shopping District does allow small business offices or small clinics or afterschools. There is no need to rezone any parcel in Vallco Shopping District at this time, especially since no one mentioned office use at the Vallco kickoff meeting at all.

In neither the NOP for Vallco EIR nor the presentation of the EIR Scoping Meeting, no where was the likelihood of allowing 35 units/acre on all 58 acres mentioned at all. No where was the likely impact of state legislatures were specified at all. The presentation in EIR Scoping Meeting only mentioned one option with 2/3 residential and 1/2 non-residential. A reasonable person would understand that to mean 389 units or at most 800 units, as stated in NOP by transferring 411 units, could occupy 2/3 footage of the entire project. The other 1/3 would be commercial, such as 1.2 million square feet of retail space.

To build trust and transparency, I urge you to keep your promise to the citizens. No more unnecessary free giveaways without any public inputs. Please rezone at most 11.11 acres for residential use and 0 acre for office use. No more.

Thank you.

Sincerely,

Liang C

Cupertino Resident