Thursday, November 22, 2018

Liang - Vallco will likely generate 1066 students - verifiable source provided

From: Liang-Fang Chao
Date: Thu, Oct 4, 2018 at 11:50 AM
Subject: Vallco will likely generate 1066 students - verifiable source provided
To: City Council <citycouncil@cupertino.org>, City Clerk <CityClerk@cupertino.org>, Cupertino City Manager's Office <manager@cupertino.org>, City of Cupertino Planning Dept. <planning@cupertino.org>


Dear Mayor Paul and Council Members,

Below is a Nextdoor post to provide verifiable source to support my statement made in 10/2 Council meeting that " the total number of students generated from Vallco Tier 2 Plan will be likely 1000 students." At the end, I have provided links to the source document for your reference.

Since Council Member Barry Chang challenged me in the Council meeting without giving me a chance to clarify the source of my numbers, I would like to request that the City Clerk put this email into the meeting record of 10/2 Council meeting.
This email also includes some text of the comment I made on 10/2, so it should be included in the meeting packet.

In the future, I hope each of the Council Members has the courtesy to allow the public speaker to respond in case you want to challenge the speaker on the content of their speech. In fact, the Council allowed Hung Wei to come up to clarify that she does indeed support Vallco Tier 2 plan. Please provide the same courtesy for all other speakers for fairness.

Thank you.

Liang Chao
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(Other Nextdoor members request that I start a new post with this information. So, here it is. I've edited a bit for clarify. The comment was originally posted under thread "Vallco Questions: What's Approved? How Did We Get Here? What Next?")
My comment in 10/2 Council meeting stated that the total number of students generated from Vallco Tier 2 Plan will be likely 1000 students. Of course, I can provide verifiable source for my number, as I always do. I wanted to provide it at Council meeting, but Council Member Barry Chang refused to give me a chance to respond. Instead, he calls up FUHSD Superintendent Polly Bove to comment. Poly said Vallco Tier 2 Plan will generate 174 students.(and later said approximately 200).
(Of course, I was making comment as an individual, not a school board member, at the meeting and here on Nextdoor too.)

For completeness, here are some points made in my public comment made on 10/2: [Begin 10/2 Comment] This project will add enough office for 10,000 more workers, 2668 units, up to 14 stories tall. With no real park and no schools, even though I will likely generate 1000 students. As far as know, the city has not notified the school district after you've decided to increase the housing units from 800 to 2400 units. The city has not involved anyone from the school district in the negotiation for the community benefits.

You all know what families care about most here in Cupertino is schools. Yet, you've managed to hold the schools hostage in your benefits package. If any subcontractor sues Sand Hill, you would take away $5 million dollars from schools, not from your empty shell city hall or empty shell performing art center. Let's not just look at the millions we will get. Let's look at millions will have to spend to spend to build more classrooms, more freeway expansions, millions to complete empty-shell Performing Art Center and empty-shell City Hall..

Let's not just look at a few units that might be available for teachers. How about the 1700 CUSD teachers and staff who currently commute to Cupertino? How about other current Cupertino workers who commute to Cupertino? Their commute time has doubled in the past few years. With 10,000 more workers to compete for housing and highway capacity, their commute time will likely double or triple.[End 10/2 Comment]
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In order to negotiate a good deal for the school district, the city and the district should use a realistic number, based realistic data. When there is a possible range, the city and district should of course use a higher student-generation number for a better negotiation position. It is just irresponsible to artificially reduce the number of students generated. For whose benefits?

The number of housing units in Vallco Tier 2 Plan is 2668. The SGR (student-generation-rate) is 0.32 for CUSD. => 853 students for CUSD.
The SGR is 0.08 for FUHSD => 213 students.
Together, the total is 1066 students. I said "1000 students" in the Council meeting.
Both of the SGRs I used come from the latest Demographer's reports from CUSD and FUHSD.

In the latest CUSD demographer's report by Tom Williams, he derived the SGR number 0.32 from the two recent developments in Cupertino: Nineteen800 and Biltmore Expansion.
The FUHSD Demorgrapher's report by Tom Williams too derives the SGR of 0.08 from the same recent developments. He further stated "Since the student totals are concentrated in the lower grades, the 9-12 SGR eventually should become higher than the current 0.08 amount."

The 0.17 SGR number quoted by David Fung came from School Impact Analysis, which is a consultant hired by the City for Vallco EIR. In that report, the 0.17 SGR was used for the "Proposed Project" (interior sq.ft. of 800 sq.ft. + 200 non-interior sqft). However, according to the Vallco Tier 2 Developer Agreement, it estimates the average size per unit to be 1250 sq.ft. Plus, the Vallco Specific Plan itself does not set any limit on unit size. Therefore, the average size per unit could be even higher than 1250 sq.ft, since the DA only gave an estimate, not an upper limit.

As we've seen in Main Street, done by the same developer, the size of some so-called one-bedroom unit is as big as 1500 sqft or even 1700 sqft with a den, a loft and an office.

The School Impact Analysis, done for Vallco EIR, tried to justify that the Vallco development will be adult oriented and not suitable for families. But there was no reference nor any case study provided. Yet, they just magically reduced the SGR from 0.32 to 0.17 with no supporting data. Why not 0.10 or 0.20? Why 0.17? Off the top of their heads?
Since the School Impact Analysis did not justify their SGR 0.17 with any data at all, I could not use such unverifiable number. Just because some consultant puts it in a report doesn't make it a verifiable fact.

Some of the reasons the consultant used to justify the lower SGR:
"The developments include more studios and one-bedroom units", which is not the case since VSP did not give any limit on the number of bedrooms for the 2668 units.
"The units are relatively small", which is not the case for VSP since there is no unit size limit.

"Most important, the units will likely be expensive." => This is true though. Then, singles have more incentive to NOT live in Vallco since other cheaper alternatives exist nearby, NOT in Cupertino school district.
"They lack yards and have limited access to play structures and areas for pre-school children, and/or lack open spaces with turf for elementary school-age children" => This is true though since VSP provided NO park, just some concrete plaza/walkways as open space. But for some people who grew up in high-density cities elsewhere, this would not discourage them since they value Cupertino schools.
"There is generally no more than one assigned parking space per unit" => This is true since VSP suggests to provide NO parking space so that a tenant has to pay extra for a space. Likely, nearby neighborhoods will become parking lot for these tenants. Since there is no viable transit, tenants do still have to own a car, especially those with children.

"Assumptions have been made about the size of the units, as discussed above, and, as noted above, this is a factor that strongly influences student generation." => And these assumptions made do not match the approved Vallco Specific Plan, which did not provide any unit size limit or bedroom limit. Likely larger units will be in the project to maximize profits.

There, any conclusion in a consultant report is just an "opinion" piece, based on some data and some assumptions. A different consultant might have a different opinion. Some people might blindly trust the conclusion and call these consultants "experts". Some people would look at the assumptions used and see whether the consultant can back up any of the assumptions used.

I have read enough consultant reports to know what we cannot blindly trust the "conclusion" of a report. It is just irresponsible to blindly trust one so-called "expert" consultant when experts often disagree with each other.
If one person blindly trust the City Staff and the consultants, this person would likely rubberstamp a staff recommendation. Why do we even need such a person on the City Council or Planning Commission? For show?

REFERENCE:

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