The Sun
Sunnyvale's Newspaper

Keep your eyes wide open, speak your mind to the city

By Creighton Bricker

This is an open letter to the citizens of Sunnyvale who care about the future of the city.

Having just left the Planning Commission because we are moving out of state, I wish to urge some neighborhood cooperation by Sunnyvale residents. Almost all contentious issues that faced the Planning Commission (and City Council) during my all-too-short tenure involved projects that were opposed only by the residents near them. The problem with this is that it is all too easy for the commission or council to discount your concerns as just a NIMBY (Not In My Back Yard) point of view. Some projects truly don't belong where the City Council is putting them.

The sad thing is that if some of these projects were in your back yard, you would also have opposed them. So the question is, then: Why don't more neighborhoods support other neighborhoods in supporting or opposing certain projects that are just not right?

Obviously, there are a couple of answers, maybe three. One is that no one else knows about the issue except for the local neighborhood that is noticed (within a few hundred feet of the project) by the city. Those so noticed must then notify the rest of the neighborhood, if they are so organized, about the issue. The second is that no other neighborhood is aware because the noticing is only for the area local to the project. The third may be that people are just plain complacent because they are convinced of Sunnyvale's "excellence." I hope not, for our elected officials really need the valuable input the public has to offer.

How does one overcome such a situation? Or are the people of Sunnyvale so apathetic that they will only get excited about NIMBY-related issues?

One way to be aware is to get on the mailing list to receive agendas for both the Planning Commission and City Council. Another is to watch The Sun and read the notices on the page headed "Legal Advertising & Public Notices." Look for the enclosed box with the city logo and headed by "City of Sunnyvale."

These notices list the projects, with minimal description and location, and dates of the hearing.

Staff reports on each project are available from City Hall, and one is also placed in the Sunnyvale Library. These reports are available on the Friday just preceding the commission or council meeting at which they will be heard.

People need to get in the habit of driving by those areas and evaluating the worth of the proposed project and its impact on the city. If you don't like it, the Planning Commission or City Council will never know--unless you appear before that body or write to its members, whether you're for a project or against it.

There was a recent Planning Commission issue about a four-story hotel proposed by John Vidovich. He wants to place this "upscale" hotel and four eight-plexes just west of Pastoria in an area containing Peewee's Pizza and a car lot, up to the border of the Color Tile site. The area is zoned so that this is possible. But the question really is whether that is the right place for this project. The hotel and eight-plexes will cover the ground from El Camino all the way through to Olive Avenue. Olive residents and surrounding neighborhood residents are almost 100 percent against it. Why?

Too massive; adds noise to a residential area; changes the character of the neighborhood; impacts their privacy and safety; is aesthetically unappealing; adds traffic to Olive Avenue; dominates the area; and so on.

Olive and the surrounding streets, except for the small commercial corner on the Pastoria/El Camino end, are all residential. It is a nice, well-kept, attractive residential community back in there. There are other places in the city where a "luxury hotel" might fit, such as the properties on either side of Mathilda at El Camino. Making such an incursion into a nice residential neighborhood is not right, in my view.

If there are others of you out there that feel the same, I hope you went down to the City Council meeting yesterday (Sept. 16), when John Vidovich (who says the project is not about money!) presented his appeal of the Planning Commission's denial of the application.

Keep your eyes peeled for upcoming projects and make your views citywide, not just in your back yard. With the council as now constructed, if your particular protest is viewed as NIMBY only, you will lose by a vote of 4-3.

There is a "Gang of Four" (Parker, Valerio, Vorreiter and, all too often, Walker) on the City Council who seldom seem to really listen to the residents. They need to know that Sunnyvale citizens as a group, not just as individual neighborhoods, oppose some of these projects that are "densifying," dwarfing and ruining your city.

Creighton Bricker is a former planning commissioner and a resident of Sunnyvale.

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This article appeared in the Sunnyvale Sun, September 17, 1997.
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