The Almaden Youth Association is proposing to build a 35-acre soccer, baseball and softball fields complex on the Caglia Ranch site in the South Almaden Valley Urban Reserve off of McKean Road, citing the critical need for a safe place for Almaden Valley youth to play.

Mike Campbell, who works at RBF, the environmental consulting firm that performed the draft EIR, said, " 'Significant and unavoidable' impacts are common, but not always identified in DEIRs. It depends on the project. They don't necessarily mean a project isn't feasible, but serve to provide the decision-makers, who must adopt overriding considerations in order to certify the DEIR, with enough information to make an informed decision."

Some of those impacts seem minor, such as a change in "visual character," which is inevitable when a barley field is turned into a sports complex. The corresponding loss of farmland, increase in noise and possible habitat losses for endangered species round out the list.

But two impacts labeled "significant and unavoidable" involve the lack of water supply and concerns about safety for people riding bikes or walking along the narrow two-lane McKean Road.

Two wells on the Caglia Ranch site can't pump enough water to keep the proposed six soccer fields alive if natural turf is used, according to the report. The draft EIR suggests constantly monitoring how much water is in the wells and reducing pumping as needed.

In times of drought, the report continues, the water shortage could affect people living in the urban reserve who rely on well water, by contributing to "problems with having adequate ground water across the sub-basin."

The report considers on-site water storage tanks, but argues that the additional aesthetic problems caused by a bulky tank make that solution untenable.

Cars, kids and bikes

The other major problem is that McKean Road is a two-lane road with a speed limit of 40 mph. One weekend day of soccer practice generates 2,040 car trips, the "worst-case scenario," according to the draft EIR.

Add adults and children walking along the road, and the potential for disaster rises.

The AYA has said that its members will sign waivers promising they will not walk or bike to the sports complex.

The draft EIR acknowledges that a waiver signed by those participating in the AYA games would not reduce the risk to a "less than significant" level, possibly because not everyone who will be biking and walking along McKean Road will belong to the AYA. "The proposed project would contribute to a significant and unavoidable cumulative traffic safety impact for pedestrians and bicyclists," the report states. "No feasible mitigation measures are currently available to reduce this cumulative impact."

AYA President Dan Smyth said as a father of three kids who play in the leagues and as a soccer coach of 10 years, he doesn't recall one player showing up to practice or a game in anything other than a car. "My children never have ridden [a bike] or walked to practice or games. They were usually too tired after practice to even consider having to ride home," he said.

San Jose City Council District 10 representative Pat Dando said that in order to address the needs of bicycle and pedestrian safety, she encourages parents to carpool and to take their children to the site.

"As stated in the draft EIR, 'accident data does not indicate that substantial numbers of pedestrian and bicycle accidents have occurred along McKean Road.' AYA's policy will insist that children not come by foot or bike," Dando said.

Traffic to and from the complex is also expected to clog intersections at Almaden Expressway and Blossom Hill Road and Almaden Expressway and Camden Avenue, where drivers would see delays of nearly two minutes each on weekends and at least one minute during weekdays.

Alternatives

The report suggests building the complex in phases, first by planting five acres of natural turf—enough for 21Ž2 soccer fields that are 70-by-115 yards across—and watching what happens to the water supply. This would limit the strain on the wells, but doesn't solve any of the other problems.

"As an AYA team, we have not really discussed the phasing approach yet," said Smyth. "There obviously are numerous approaches we could take: give a mix of natural turf, artificial turf, multiuse fields, etc."

Dando said she was encouraged about building the project in phases. "This should work well with community fundraising and provide 'real field data' information on which to base future phases," she said.

The report acknowledges that the project would cause irreversible changes to the Caglia Ranch site, designated as "open space" by Santa Clara County.

However, the draft EIR's discussion of the cumulative impact of those changes to the reserve includes Chinese Church along with the sports complex. The Almaden Resident reported on May 6 that the church has decided to sell its McKean Road site rather than build a new church there because of the restrictions the county placed on the size of the project.

Also discussed are alternative sites for the complex. Only one vacant parcel of land in the Almaden area meets the minimum requirement of 25 acres, and its steep, irregular shape makes it unfeasible.

Finally, the report states that rehabilitating Almaden's existing sports fields won't work because that wouldn't increase their capacity.

Now that the draft EIR has been released, the public can send comments to city council members and planning commissioners for 30 days. After that, the planning commission will vote whether to approve the findings. The city council then has the option to overrule the commission's vote.

A full month after the Almaden Resident wrote about its difficulty in getting contracts and other public records regarding the sports complex project during the course of an 11-week investigation, we finally got those documents.

San Jose Vice Mayor Pat Dando, Almaden Youth Association President Dan Smyth, AYA Treasurer Dan Kennedy and AYA board member Gary Rummelhoff came to the Resident's office Aug. 16 and delivered, among other documentation, copies of two grant contracts, along with canceled checks and the AYA's IRS tax Form 990 for 2003.

The Resident is now examining those documents.