Letter to San Jose City Council Regarding Fortbay Project in Stevens Creek Urban Village
Dear Ms. Tam,
San Jose published a “Notice of Development Proposal” regarding 4360 Stevens Creek Blvd, project file PDC16-036.
I want to voice serious concerns regarding this project, namely:
Parking
The
proposed number of additional parking is completely insufficient. There
will be about 1,800 jobs from the additional office space with a large
percentage of workers commuting by car. In addition, there are some 580
apartments each requiring about 1.5 cars. Hence, the total amount of
parking should be about 2,400, i.e. about twice as much as suggested by
the developer.
There
must be a requirement to provide these additional parking spaces for
all residents, visitors and customer for this development. This
requirement must be part of the project without which the project cannot
be approved. These parking spaces have to be ADDITIONAL parking spaces,
hence cannot be existing parking including street parking. If there is
any planned “sharing” with other structures, then the number of required
parking spaces for these other developments must be taken into account.
All
of this, among other things, is to avoid even more parking in
residential areas including the associated noise, pollution, wasted time
to find parking, etc.
Building Height
The
proposed development is right next to 1-2 story apartments and single
family homes on both sides of Stevens Creek. The proposed building
height of 8 stories is 4-8(!!!) times taller than the buildings in this
area. Besides all the other negative impacts, the visual impact,
blocking of views, reduction of home value prices (they probably still
increase but become less desirable) due to all the negative impacts,
etc. must be taken into account. Most new developments in this area are
3-4 stories high including developments along Stevens Creek, Lawrence,
Kiely, San Tomas, El Camino, etc. This is despite the fact that In many
of those cases there are no 1-2 story apartments and single family homes
close by. Hence, construction along Stevens Creek should be limited to 3
stories.
Traffic Impact
The
proposed development will have a very significant traffic impact.
Traffic along Stevens Creek is already very high. The same is true for
the major roads that cross Stevens Creek and are used by residents and
employees working on Stevens Creek. These roads include Lawrence, San
Tomas, Kiely, etc. In addition, the highways are already jammed and the
roads providing access to those highways are also backlogged. Even 3
story homes all along Stevens Creek will make the situation considerably
worse. These roads simply can’t accommodate the increased traffic from
5+ story buildings. Ignoring this fact will lead to more noise,
pollution, jammed local roads, etc. Mass transportation like trains are not feasible along Stevens Creek.
Consideration of General Plan
Often impact studies are made for an individual project.
The proposed project on 4360 Stevens Creek will have a significant
impact even considered as an isolated project. However, fact is that it
will set a precedence for new projects all along Stevens Creek. This is
actually quite well outlined by the Stevens Creek Urban Village Plan which includes buildings of 50-160 along Stevens Creek on the San Jose side. Impact studies must take the overall impact into consideration.
In
addition of all of those items, please also include by reference all
the concerns that Santa Clara has submitted to San Jose regarding the
Stevens Creek Urban Village Plan including the attached letter from
Thomas Law Group dated 8/8/17.
Regards,
Robert
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