Liang - Transparency and Trust in Vallco Opticos Process

From: Liang C
Date: Tue, Apr 10, 2018 at 12:20 AM
Subject: Transparency and Trust
To: Bill Lennertz <blennertz@gmail.com>, Daniel Parolek <daniel.parolek@opticosdesign.com>, Mitali Ganguly <mitali.ganguly@opticosdesign.com>, Catarina Kidd <CatarinaK@cupertino.org>, Piu Ghosh <PiuG@cupertino.org>

Dan,

Thank you for listening to me patiently. I was surprised that you seem unaware of the "conditions" attached to the allocations for Vallco. Without a good understanding of such "conditions", you won't be able to understand the community sentiments on Vallco Shopping Mall. For this process to be successful, the city should be transparent in order to earn the trust of the community, which the city has lost due to some decisions made without sufficient public engagement.

Please correct the General Plan allocations for Vallco with:

1. The retail space allowed is 0.6-1.2 million square feet. Not listing the maximum of 1.2 million sqft gives people the perception that someone is trying to hide it from the public.

=> The other categories all list the maximum allowed amount. Yet, the minimum amount is listed for retail and no where was 1.2 million sqft mentioned. This gives people the false impression that the maximum allowed retail space is 0.6 million sqft.

=> It is very important to understand that the community wants a full-size shopping mall at 1.2 million sqft. The city council promised to "revitalize" Vallco Shopping Mall over the years. Never did anyone ever inform the residents that the shopping mall will be reduced in half as it is revitalized. Never on any city council agenda or any direct mail to residents.

=> Before Vallco Shopping Mall was closed in late 2014, about 1 million sqft was occupied by viable long-term tenants, most have been in Vallco 10 or more years. More details at http://bettercupertino.blogspot.com/2016/04/truth-80-of-retail-space-in-vallco-was.html

=> I chatted with the Economic consultants Ben Sigman tonight. Someone said the anchor store chains are dying with thousands of store closing. I said that many more retail chains got created too. I said but the overall retail sale has grown by 3-4% in 2017 and every year before that. Ben agreed with me. Ben said online sale is 7%  of overall retail. I added that the retail job market remains strong, which means there are as many retail jobs as before. Retail overall is not dying. It's just transforming Ben agreed. Ben did mention the difficulty to lease ground-floor retail in mixed use project if the retail space is not well-designed. Ben mentioned the importance of tenant matching to mix high profile tenant with low profile ones and charging different rents.

=> With the normal 1.5% growth rate, our population will double in 30 years. However, we will see significant higher growth rate in the next few years due to rapid job growth of 3-4% per year in the past few years. San Jose will build thousands more housing units. Sunnyvale and Santa Clara will build more. Both sides of Stevens Creek in Cupertino, already zoned for residential, are likely to build more housing units. Yet, Vallco is the last piece of land in Cupertino for a significant shopping component to serve the area residents and generate sales tax for Cupertino.

=> We are planning the city for the future needs of Cupertino. We can't just cut the retail space in half because the developer, who bought the retail-only shopping mall, wants to cut it in half. You must provide strong, very strong justification for reducing the retail space.

2. The office and residential allocations are PROVISIONAL, pending on the approval of Vallco Specific Plan. Please state so in all documents for transparency and communty trust.

=> In October 2014, the planning commission recommended 0 office and 0 housing for Vallco because they thought the public has not been involved yet, even though they would like to see mixed use at Vallco. On December 3 2014, the city council initially promised to NOT discuss office allocation that night. Then, after midnight, the council all of a sudden decided to discuss Vallco office allocation. At the time, the council wanted to give the developer an envelope to explore options, but the council did realize that the community hasn't weighed in yet. So, the office allocation was pending on the approval of the Vallco Specific Plan. The council said that the allocation will expire in 3 years (ends on May 31, 2018) if the Vallco Specific Plan is not approved by then.

=> The economic consultant Ben Sigman said the office market is strong, implying more office is economically better. I asked him. "What do you think is the cause of housing shortage?" He said that we did not build enough housing. I said that the problem is that job growth in the past few years is 3-4% per year, while the housing growth is following the normal rate of 1-1.5% per year. So, rapid job growth is the cause of housing shortage. Ben said "you have good numbers." I said, "Should we let the market force drive planning decisions? If so, we will continue to build more office and we will go deeper in housing shortage. We can't keep following the same practice that created the housing shortage." Ben agreed. I added "City planning decisions should consider the needs of different land uses for the city residents. Market force should not drive planning decisions." Ben said that city planning decisions need to consider other factors.

=> The 2 million sqft office space is NOT an entitlement; it was just a chance to explore. If the Vallco Specific Plan can't be approved by May 31, 2018, the allocation is supposed to expire.

Someone asked Ben, "Do you think housing next to office will reduce traffic?" Surprisingly, he gave a common sense answer, not a bureaucratic answer we've seen. He said, "No. One has to be very lucky to be able to live next to work. The area is a 9-county commute. People live in one place and commute elsewhere." Ben even said, "Some families have two people commuting to two different directions." So, let's not pretend that housing near job will reduce traffic.

Thank you for taking community inputs seriously. The revised guiding principles look a whole lot more like a community vision for Vallco than the first draft.

I do agree with the other lady that affordable housing at different levels should be included. The city does require 15% BMR.

I am skeptical of the "innovative solutions" to reduce traffic. If there were "innovative solutions" that actually works, we won't see worse and worse traffic congestion. I hope that we are not talking "imaginary solutions" that work only in theory or only in a specific case.
A project can't change people's behavior. If an "innovative solution" depends on a change in people's behavior, such solution should not be a part of a development project. Some nonprofit could try to promote behavior change through other means. Don't use "imaginary solution" to pretend that traffic will reduce, please.

Looking forward to interesting discussions in the coming week.

Liang