Willow Glen Resident
News
Residents turn into urban planners at city workshop
By Janice Rombeck
About 250 residents from across San Jose spent last Saturday morning as urban planners charged with answering this question: What should San Jose look like in 20 to 30 years?
Their collective answer: an energy-efficient and safe city with a vibrant downtown, accessible transportation, healthy neighborhoods, parks and business districts, inviting places to gather, respect for the environment and history, more jobs, affordable housing and better schools.
In other words, they want it all.
The thoughts and ideas that emerged from a three-hour planning exercise at the Oct. 13 Community Visioning Workshop at city hall will be considered by a task force appointed by the city council in August to help update the city's General Plan, which guides land use decisions and future growth.
Turning a collective vision into a blueprint for the city won't be easy.
"It's going to be very difficult to balance the vision and the practicalities and find the money to do all this," said Harvey Darnell, a North Willow Glen resident and task force member, but he added, "I think it can be done."
The 37-member citizen task force guiding the General Plan update effort, called Envision San Jose 2040, will work for the next two years to help planning officials develop a blueprint for the future. Members include neighborhood leaders, environmentalists, builders, business and labor representatives, educators and seven former council members. The task force is co-chaired by Councilman Sam Liccardo, who represents the downtown area, and former councilwoman Shirley Lewis. Former Councilman David Pandori and current council members Pierluigi Oliverio and Judy Chirco also serve on the task force.
Although the group represents a wide variety of interests, Mayor Chuck Reed asked task force and community members gathered at City Hall to "put aside the special interests you may care passionately about" to look at citywide planning issues.
Through September, the task force will identify issues and create a vision, analyze existing conditions and turn ideas into proposals. By January 2010, the task force will set goals, develop policies and create drafts of the General Plan and environmental impact report. The city council will review the documents and give final approval.
San Jose's first General Plan was adopted in 1976 and was last updated in 1984.
The planning exercise began on a positive note as workshop participants broke into 30 smaller groups, including two youth groups and Vietnamese- and Spanish-speaking groups.
They were first asked to identify what they liked best about San Jose. The city's diversity, including ethnic groups, arts, businesses and generations, was at the top of most lists.
The next task was addressing priorities and issues for the future. Fiscal responsibility was a priority on many lists, along with giving all neighborhoods equal attention and resources, more pedestrian-friendly streets, an expanded city center with retail outlets and more jobs.
Answers to the final workshop, during which participants had to determine what would make San Jose a great city 20 to 30 years into the future, included putting San Jose in the forefront of sustainable energy and environmental protection, making it the model for urbanization, bringing BART to San Jose, fully developing the trail system, creating a large central park, strengthening neighborhood identities and providing daycare with job growth.
But participants also believed San Jose should appreciate what it already offers.
"We need to capitalize on what we already have," said Helen Chapman, former parks and recreation commissioner.
Envision San Jose 2040 task force meetings are open to the public.
For future dates and more information, log on to www.sanjoseca.gov/planning and click on General Plan Update or call the planning division at 408.535.3555.
