The Cupertino Courier
News
Cupertino and San Jose will talk about borders
By Cody Kraatz
The Cupertino City Council has authorized Mayor Kris Wang to initiate talks with San Jose aimed at shifting two borders.
The first, along Lawrence Expressway between Interstate 280 and Bollinger Road, would pave the way for Cupertino officials to develop a remaining section of the San Tomas Aquino/Saratoga Creek Trail.
The other realignment, around Kentwood Avenue and DeAnza Boulevard, would challenge San Jose's plans for a housing and retail project on the land.
Both areas bound San Jose's District 1, which is represented by Councilman Pete Constant. Wang said she is scheduled to meet with Constant in about two weeks.
The council also authorized council members Dolly Sandoval and Richard Lowenthal to work with the Santa Clara County Roads and Airports Department and the San Jose Water Company to acquire and develop a strip of land along Lawrence Expressway that is now a dump site for ripped up concrete and asphalt.
"It's just not the best use of that land. I have some environmental concerns also, with it being right up against a creek,'' Sandoval said.
There is not a lot of parkland in the area around Rancho Rinconada, and Sandoval said the council is interested in developing more to serve residents there.
If San Jose agrees, the county's storage site would be swapped for adjacent land currently owned by the water company. Wang said Cupertino would have to buy that land from the water company, allowing the county to retain a site in that area.
The Lawrence Expressway realignment would enable Cupertino to complete a section of the trail stretching from the Agilent Technologies campus in Santa Clara to Bollinger Road in Cupertino.
There remains a "trail gap" between the Agilent campus and Barnhart Road, Lowenthal said. San Jose has developed the section of the trail in District 1 as far as possible, according to Constant's staff.
Lowenthal urged the council to consider the two realignments as separate issues, because the Kentwood shift will create more contention with San Jose and should not be allowed to get in the way of the trail and park development.
Last year, San Jose approved a general plan amendment to allow housing on the 4-acre Kentwood parcel, where a strip mall and grocery store currently stand. After community objections to the potential loss of retail services to high-density housing, the amendment directed the developer to preserve 1 acre for retail and build housing on the remaining 3 acres.
The intention of the proposed Kentwood realignment is to shield Cupertino residents from some of the impact of development, according to Lowenthal.
"We will get the traffic, and we will get the impact to the schools," said Vice Mayor Patrick Kwok. "The only thing we will lose is the sales tax, but I'm sure they will not hand it to us and say, 'Good idea, you got it.' "
San Jose agreed to the Lawrence Expressway realignment three years ago because the area is unincorporated and uninhabited.
Lowenthal said that while the trail will serve people from West San Jose, Santa Clara and Sunnyvale--cities the trail runs through--that section will serve primarily Cupertino residents.
"We like to control land that serves our residents,'' he said.
The section of trail is the fifth of a six-segment San Tomas Aquino/Saratoga Creek Trail that will eventually run from the San Francisco Bay Trail in Santa Clara to Murdock Park in San Jose. Segments 1, 2 and 6 are completed, and others, such as this one, are in the design and planning phase.
