Andy Frazer
June 2014
Note: This was an
opinion piece published by the Sunnyvale Sun, August 2014.
Sunnyvale’s 2013 City Council election hinged on the rapid
growth of commercial and residential construction. The conflict was clearly
between residents who want
to protect the quality of life in Sunnyvale, and the developers who want to
build multi-million dollar projects
Sunnyvale’s master plan, The
General Plan, defines a planning tool called the Balanced Growth Profile
(BGP). The city describes the BGP as ”a planning tool which can be used to
monitor growth and to determine the relative balance … between population
growth and job growth, and between development and the infrastructure which
supports it.” The Balanced Growth Profile relates land-use decisions to the
impact on schools, parks, utilities and transportation infrastructure.
By 2014, Sunnyvale’s rapid growth in Moffett Park (north of
Hwy 237), and along Mathilda Ave. developed 95% of the 7.6 million sq. ft. of
the office space envisioned by 2025 in the Balanced Growth Profile. Short-term,
this rapid growth is a recipe for more traffic congestion. Long-term, it will
create increased demand for more housing, and further overcrowding of our
schools.
Concern over this Balanced Growth Profile metric resulted in
a Joint Study Session last May between city staff, the Planning Commission, and
the City Council (“Sunnyvale officials
debate merits of Balanced Growth Profile”, Sunnyvale Sun, June 4, 2014). In
this meeting, City staff presented some of the problems with the BGP, and
identified steps that could resolve these problems
City Staff indicated a need to re-calibrate some of the BGP
metrics such as parks, traffic and infrastructure. Staff also revealed the city has been under-reporting new
improvements to traffic capacity. Many attendees agreed the various school
districts may not be reporting their school capacity metrics consistently.
But instead of developing an action plan to resolve these
problems, many council members chose to continue ignoring the warnings of the
BGP. Some council members took the opportunity to dismiss the relevance of this
tool which was created with input of many residents.
In the next few years, Sunnyvale will see a huge increase in
commercial construction in Moffett Park and along North Mathilda Ave. Next
year, the City Council is expected to approve the new Peery Park Specific Plan,
which will allow millions of square feet of new office space between Maude Ave
and 101. The Lawrence Station Area will bring thousands of high-density housing
units to the neighborhood around Lawrence Expressway and Kifer Road, and
residents near El Camino Real and Wolfe Road are already preparing for a huge
housing project at Butcher’s Corner.
It’s easy for the City Council to approve applications for
huge office and residential projects. It is very difficult to allocate millions
of dollars necessary to fund necessary increases for city services, schools and
transportation infrastructure. The Balanced Growth Profile was designed
specifically to prevent these imbalances.
The City Council should represent the concerns of the
residents when making major land-use decisions. The Council has an obligation to all of our residents to
acknowledge the importance of the Balanced Growth Profile as a development
tool, and to work with city staff to correct any bad or missing data in the profile.
Anyone who is interested in the growth of Sunnyvale should
carefully read the transcript of the Joint Study Session.
Further
Reading
A short, animated video explaining the role of the Balanced
Growth Profile in city planning.
A brief white paper about the Balanced Growth Profile
A website of short, animated videos and brief papers on
some important challenges facing Sunnyvale.
Andy Frazer is a
former Sustainability Commissioner, and former candidate for City Council. He
is also co-founder of Sunnyvale Pension Reform.
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