Cupertino Matters
- Shakespeare at Memorial Park
- Vallco Agreement
- TONIGHT – City Council, Tues., July 16, 2024, 6:45 p.m., Regular; 5:00 p.m. Special meeting
- RECAP – City Council, Tues., July 9, 2024, 6:45, Regular
This weekend starts the run of the free Shakespeare in the Park production of The Tempest which will run for the next three weekends (Sat. and Sun.) at 6 p.m. at Memorial Park. Cupertino was in danger of losing this tradition due to budget cuts but local nonprofit groups in tandem with Mayor Mohan’s mayoral fund were able to raise sufficient money to continue for this year.
The election for City Council has started, as the first six candidates pulled papers on Monday to run for office. Incumbents Hung Wei and Kitty Moore have pulled nomination papers, along with Parks and Recreation Commissioner Claudio Bono, Foothill-De Anza Board Trustee Gilbert Wong, R “Ray” Wang–an ex-offender whom readers will remember from his disgraceful performance on the Planning Commission–and community member Chitra Dhingra. Former Mayors Rod Sinks and Barry Chang have also filed statements of intention to run, but have not yet pulled nomination papers.
There is more good news regarding The Rise (the former Vallco). The City has reached an agreement with the developer, Vallco Property Owner LLC (VPO) to settle a long standing legal dispute over impact fees. There has been controversy over impact fees before, since they are a significant cost to developers. Since The Rise is a very large SB35 project (one of the first and the largest in the state) providing significantly more deed-restricted affordable housing than the required 15% for other projects, VPO contended that Cupertino’s requirements were excessive–especially pointing to claimed fees that failed to recognize credit for dedicated parkland (here, over 9 acres), on-site below market rate housing, and the elimination of induced low-income housing demand from the reduction of the commercial retail in the project. VPO’s and the City’s positions have different levels of merit depending on the fee asserted. A recent 2024 Supreme Court decision, Sheetz v. County of El Dorado, further hurts many of the City’s claims and its chances in court. A loss on this point for the City would mean not only covering its own legal bills, but those of the developer too. Moreover, state legislation has hemmed in such fees over recent years and many bills currently sailing toward passage in Sacramento make the likelihood of collecting most of the claimed fees extremely dubious.
Consequently, VPO and the City agreed to a compromise settlement agreement that was unanimously authorized by the City Council in closed session. VPO has agreed to pay $42.8 million in Transportation Impact Fees ($10.3 million), “benefit payments” ($32 million), and long range planning fees ($0.5 million), plus credit for parkland and private open space, in lieu of the originally calculated $77 million. The City issued a press release with details of the Agreement on the City’s website.
CBS News did a segment entitled Development at Cupertino’s old Vallco Shopping Mall site finally moves ahead with an informative summary of the delays over the past ten years of attempted development at the site. A Mercury News article is entitled: Vallco developers agree to pay impact fees to Cupertino: Dispute resolution allows mixed-use project to move forward This follows the previous announcement from The Rise (the former Vallco) that construction work on the site is slated to commence in the late July/early August timeframe with utility work on the west half of the mall adjacent to the I-280 freeway.
UPCOMING – CITY COUNCIL – Tues., July 16, 2024, 6:45 p.m., Regular Meeting; 5:00 p.m., Public Hearing
Public Hearing (Special Meeting – 5:00 p.m.):
Item No. 1: Lease agreement with San Jose Water Company for the operation of the Cupertino Municipal Water System: The City of Cupertino is served by three water systems: (1) San Jose Water Company (SJWC), (2) California Water Service Company (CWSC), and the (3) city-owned Cupertino Municipal Water System, currently leased to SJWC since 1997. The lease has been modified over the years with SJWC now required to make capital improvements to the leased system, in addition to maintaining normal operations. The current lease expires Sept. 30, 2024. The proposed lease is a twelve year extension, with the option of early termination for convenience. SJWC would pay $22.1 million in a one-time concession fee, and annual investment rent of $1.8 million per year with annual increases, as well as an annual franchise fee of approximately $250,000.
Regular Meeting:
There are no Ceremonial Items. The Consent Calendar contains nine routine items, including Item No, 7. Second reading of Municipal Code Amendments and Zoning Map Amendments to ensure conformance with the Housing Element and related CEQA exemption, the final step to approval of a compliant Housing Element. Members of the public may speak on any or all consent calendar items when the mayor asks for public comment on the Consent Calendar. If an item is pulled from the Consent Calendar, it will ordinarily be addressed after all action items, unless Council votes to reorder them. Members of the public may comment on that item when it is considered.
The sole action item is Item No. 10: Waiver of Below Market Rate Housing Mitigation Fees (“BMR Fees”) and Zoning/Planning Municipal Code Fees (“Planning Fees”) imposed on Vallco/Rise SB 35 project (10101-10330 North Wolfe Road). In order to effectuate the settlement agreement authorized with Vallco Property Owner LLC in closed session (see above), the City Council has to formally waive the relevant impact fees in an open meeting. The staff report clearly outlines the justification for these modifications:
“Section 2.3.3(D) of the City’s Below Market Rate Housing Mitigation Procedures Manual requires the City Council to approve a request for waiver of modification of BMR requirements based on a showing that applying the requirement would result in an unconstitutional taking of property or any other unconstitutional result, based on the advice of the City Attorney. Similarly, the City Council has authority to waive or modify the application of an excessive Planning Fee by resolution.
As explained in the findings set forth in the proposed Resolution (Attachment C), the provision of 890 affordable housing units fully mitigates the impact of the project’s market-rate housing and nonresidential components on demand for affordable housing, thereby justifying the waiver of the BMR Fee under Sheetz v. County of El Dorado.”
The supplemental reports posted on Monday evening also contain helpful information in understanding the justification for the fee waivers. These can be found here.
Item No. 11: Council Reports, (now submitted in written form) were provided by Mayor Mohan, Vice-Mayor Fruen, and Councilmember Wei. Councilmembers Chao and Moore failed to submit reports at the time the agenda was released.
RECAP – CITY COUNCIL – Tues., July 9, 2024, 6:45 p.m., Regular Meeting; 5:00 Closed Session
YouTube: 2 hr. 1 min. (Shortest meeting this year, with surprising unanimity on both items)
Closed Session:
Item No. 1 Conference with real property negotiator pursuant to Government Code §54956.8 Property: 19400 Stevens Creek Blvd., Cupertino. No reportable actions came from this session.
Special Meeting:
Item No. 3: Adoption of Vision Zero Action Plan. Adoption of Cupertino’s Vision Zero Action Plan (Plan) is an important step towards eliminating citywide multimodal traffic fatalities and serious injuries. The goal is to identify strategies and implement safety improvements to reduce fatalities and serious injuries to zero within the next 16 years. The approved plan provides for data-driven analysis of high injury corridors and intersections, a comprehensive toolbox of available infrastructure and policy options, a detailed action plan for implementing Vision Zero, and specific performance metrics to track success. After favorable public comment, there was minimal discussion before the council unanimously approved the plan.
Item No. 4: Implementation of an on-street two-way Class IV bike lane on Vista Drive and Forest Avenue (Alternative 3) along the Lawson Middle School frontage and prohibition of parking along the west side of Vista Dive between Forest Avenue and Merritt Drive for the accommodation of Class IV bicycle lanes and adoption of an Ordinance Municipal Code Table 11.24.150, relating to prohibition of parking along certain streets. Public input was extensive on this item, with a large number of students and parents from Lawson (past, present, and future), community members, Walk Bike Cupertino members, three CUSD board members, and the CUSD District Superintendent who either emailed or spoke at the Council meeting in support of the bike path. With relatively little discussion, the item was approved unanimously.
CUPERTINO COURIER: July 12, 2024
The front page photo and article on page 5 is entitled Budget woes extinguish fireworks: City Council forced to make cuts in the face of $15 million shortfall. Community briefs on page 5 include (1) Jazz with a spark, (2) Family movie time, and (3) Paint the Town. Legal notices are (1) Second Reading of Fence ordinance, and (2) Application for a Use Permit to allow an arcade in the Marketplace Shopping Center scheduled for the Planning Commission on July 23, 2024.
Warm regards,
Jean Bedord
Cupertino Matters
Publisher and Editor
