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Around The Glen
Community Center and Neighborhood Meeting
Gardner area neighbors will have a chance to discuss upgrades planned for Biebrach Park and the Gardner Community Center at an April meeting.
The park is scheduled to get a series of improvements, and the community center will be rebuilt. The work will be funded by bond money approved by San Jose voters last fall. The parks, recreation and neighborhood services department will hold a public meeting on the improvement plans next month.
The meeting is scheduled for April 4, from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. at the Gardner Academy (502 Illinois Ave.,) located across the street from the park and community center. Refreshments will be available at 6:30 p.m.
For more information or special accommodations, call 408.265.7301. For Spanish language translation, call 408.279.1498.
--Kate Carter
Council OK's housing on Communications Hill
The city council made way for a new housing development to cover part of the Communications Hill, near Highway 87 and Hillsdale Drive.
The hill is one of the only remaining large open spaces within the city limits. The city has been looking at ways to meet the area's increased demand for housing by encouraging new housing there. Several developments have already been built.
"It has a great deal of visibility and potential," mayoral spokesman David Vossbrink said. "That site in San Jose has been in planning for several years."
The council approved changing the approximately 130-acre site from a mix of residential, agricultural and planned development zoning to be entirely planned development. All that remains is for the developer, Kaufmann and Broad, to receive permits from the planning department for their proposed 765 attached units.
Some people have expressed opposition to the development because of the loss of habitat area, Vossbrink said. He said 30 acres of the site will be reserved as open space within the development.
None of the one-bedroom to four-bedroom homes will be affordable housing, Vossbrink said.
Another project proposed for the nearby Daisy Hill could include about 500 homes, he said.
--Kate Carter
Redevelopment areas win council approval
San Jose leaders decided to go ahead and approve turning several neighborhood commercial areas--including the Kmart site in northwest Willow Glen--into a region that will receive redevelopment funding.
The approval had been postponed since the fall because of a conflict with the county about how redevelopment dollars are collected and spent. County officials oppose expanding the areas in San Jose that receive redevelopment funds because that would mean a cut in funding for the county.
Mayoral spokesman David Vossbrink said, "We've had some pretty positive discussions with the county in the past few months. We haven't resolved all the issues."
He said the city council agreed to approve the ordinance because the county won't lose tax dollars from the business redevelopment areas as they would in normal redevelopment areas.
Vossbrink said the council wanted to create the redevelopment area to begin improvements sooner, rather than later. He said there is the possibility the county will challenge the city's action, as well as its plan to turn 20 neighborhoods in the Strong Neighborhoods Initiative into a redevelopment area. But he downplayed the likelihood that a conflict could stall those plans.
"We're pretty upbeat that this will work," Vossbrink said.
--Kate Carter
County holds hearing on redistricting issues
The county's redistricting committee has scheduled a public hearing for next week to discuss with the community plans for changing the boundaries of the county's five districts.
If local government 2000 census data is released before the meeting, those findings could also be discussed, county Redistricting Program Director Andrea Boyd Ball said. Otherwise, the meeting would mainly repeat what occurred at the first public hearing on Feb. 21, she said.
At least three more public hearings will be scheduled before new boundaries are adopted by Sept. 28, Ball said.
State population data for California will likely be released by the Census Bureau later than the data for smaller states, Ball said, because of the greater time it takes to complete.
The next public hearing is scheduled for March 21, at 7 p.m. at the Quinlan Community Center at 10185 N. Stelling Road, Cupertino. For more information call Ball at 408.299.3800, ext. 7301, or visit www.sccredistricting.org.
--Kate Carter
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Willow Glen, California Since 1992
