At its Nov. 19 meeting, the San Jose City Council voted unanimously to approve the planning commission's recommendation to rezone the 20.6-acre site from "commercial pedestrian" to "planned development."

"The hearing and vote took only about 20 minutes. It was a fairly quick hearing," said Tom Rossmeissl, a member of the District 9 Neighborhood Advisory Committee (NAC), which council member John Diquisto created in 1999 to act as a liaison between the city and the neighborhood.

"A neighborhood committee has not been used often," said Diquisto's chief of staff, Chris Hemingway. "But the neighborhood wanted to be involved in this process."

Joe Pottgieser of Yucca Avenue said that the advisory committee, the city and the developer haven't been keeping him and his neighbors sufficiently informed. Pottgieser has been actively monitoring the city and the advisory committee. He has attended most of the city's public meetings, and he claims that he and his neighbors weren't properly notified about one of the hearings.

He's not opposed to the redevelopment but to Yucca Avenue's supposed lack of representation. Pottgieser also claims that Yucca residents were left out of the project's development study.

"There are no Yucca Avenue residents on the advisory committee," Pottgieser said. "And if the NAC is supposed to be representative of the residents affected by this development, then there should be a Yucca Avenue resident on that committee."

The proposed redevelopment project borders the Willow Glen and Cambrian Park neighborhoods, which are located in District 9.

Rossmeissl confirms that there aren't any Yucca residents on the advisory committee but also says there are a number of nearby streets without specific neighborhood representation.

"All the NAC members looked to the area as a whole, not just isolated sub-neighborhoods in and around Hacienda Gardens." Rossmeissl said. "This way there's no competition between areas like north of Foxworthy, south of Foxworthy, and so on."

Nevertheless, Pottgieser also argues that Yucca Avenue already gets more cut-through traffic from motorists not wanting to wait at the traffic light at the intersection of Meridian and Foxworthy avenues. He claims to have even seen a NAC member use Yucca to avoid the light.

One of the recommendations included in the rezoning request is that a left-turn lane be striped from the eastbound lane on Hillsdale Avenue to allow left turns onto Yucca Avenue.

"That's to allow safer access to Yucca," said Mike Enderby, senior planner with the San Jose Department of Planning, Building and Code Enforcement. "It's a pretty trivial procedure, generally."

Hacienda Gardens will be redeveloped for mixed residential and retail use. The project calls for 179,000 square feet of retail space and 299 multi-family attached homes. Sixty-four of these two-story units will be situated on Yucca Avenue, with frontages facing the street.

Pottgeiser believes that the additional residences will create even more traffic and safety problems for Yucca Avenue. Enderby disagrees, since the new units will have an underground parking garage with an outlet located near the center of Yucca Avenue.

"We don't want to create a conflict at the corners," Enderby said.

Hacienda Gardens property owner Gary Rajkovich was out of town and could not be reached for comment.

Calls to Mark Tersini, developer with Hacienda Gardens, LLC, were not returned.

Now that the city's given Hacienda Gardens the go-ahead to renovate, the next step, according to Hemingway, is for Tersini to apply for the proper planned development permits for the buildings.

The San Jose City Council voted unanimously to approve the planning commission's recommendation to rezone the 20.6-acre site from commercial pedestrian to a planned development at its Nov. 19 council meeting.