Ignatius - Letter to Editor: Vallco Redevelopment Not Supported by Residents

From: Ignatius

Date: Fri, Apr 20, 2018 at 6:29 PM
Subject: Letter to Editor: Vallco Redevelopment Not Supported by Residents
To: Cupertino City-Council <citycouncil@cupertino.org>
CC: Grace Schmidt CMC (City Clerk) <CityClerk@cupertino.org>, David Brandt <manager@cupertino.org>, City Attorney's Office <CityAttorney@cupertino.org>

Dear Grace,

This is requesting to place this attached article in the city record for public information.  Please make it available for all council members for reference.  Thank you.

Ignatius Y. Ding

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Letter to Editor                            To San Jose Mercury News Vallco Redevelopment Not Supported by Residents Your article ("Community draws up alternative development plans for Vallco mall," 4/19)  was grossly misleading.  Most participants at the design meetings run by consultant firm Opticos were not Cupertino residents, but mostly out of town YIMBYs. The design process oddly looked for "alternatives" to a SB35 plan proposed by the developer, Sand Hill Property, which was not approved by the city yet.  The Opticos design criteria included massive office development which has never been supported by residents or even the out-of-town housing advocates in previous meetings. The developer surely intends to use its plan as a Trojan Horse to revive its proposed huge office park which would guarantee to worsen the housing crisis, deterioration of traffic jam, school crowding and quality of life. Incidentally, Sand Hill's proposal is full of miscalculations and inflated amount of "residential amenities" and tens of millions of parking and common areas to skirt strict SB35 requirements. Cupertino unfortunately has to deal with these nonsense all because three of the council members (Rod Sinks, Barry Chang and Savita Vaidhyanathan) illegally blocked the removal of the provisional office allocation for Vallco in the city General Plan on November 21, 2017 as shown in video meeting minutes (available on Youtube https://youtu.be/YtGZHbZ_gJI).  Curiously, the agenda item (#14), published as required by law, was quietly removed by the city, presumably under the direction of the city manager with the consent of the impotent city attorney. Ignatius Y. Ding       42-year resident of Cupertino Contact Phone: (408) 692-5757