Dear neighbors,
The train wreck keeps moving forward: Our city council approved the Housing Element sites with a 4-1 vote last night - see the list below.
Below you will also find feedback from the community.
I voted against it - the only dissenting vote.
This city council group will bear the legacy of a 10 story housing site in Saratoga. I didnât approve it.
Abraham Lincolnâs Gettysburg Address is legendary: A government of the people. by the people, for the people:
But it truly isnât so today. Our Sacramento politicians are doing what they can for their real-estate friends, and the nexus means that today we are not looking like a Democracy.
This is America - where our politicians are on sale and the very future of American people, our cities and communities are being compromised.
Would you expect me to yield to a compromised system and a sold out nexus of politicians with their real-estate and land developer friends that is jeopardizing the very future of Saratoga? That is NOT the reason I run for office!
Seemingly, after weeks of gyrations and public posturing, the council came back full circle and picked up only the postcard sites: All new sites that had been added in January were discarded âclassic neighborhood appeasement maneuverâ - and a circular path adopted to nowhere.
NOTE: Back in January, I had declared that I will NOT accept the current list of sites until we had a holistic approach as defined by a data-driven, metrics based plan like this https://rishikumar.com/thesaratogaplan - and my vote was a NO for all sites,
This approach is going to change Saratoga forever and this was a historical night of mammoth proportions in a very bad way. I hear some neighborhoods are happy - they didnât get the 1000 units, but *only* 500 units - the classic negotiation approach to making everyone feel happy with what they eventually got. Nice! Well played! It is clear that our city council has ignored the voice of the people and held ground - essentially making no change with a flawed approach and plan. Our citizens expected better - more diligence and an intelligent pragmatic approach, even creative approaches with how we addressed the future of our city. Our city council didn't even try!! I had given up on this train wreck in January. Our council continued to fast track this historic decision that will change Saratogaâs very future!
Flawed plan: This plan does nothing to address the equity issues that our neighbors brought up, or the Housing Discrimination allegation or the fact that we are setup for failure, while we discard the elements of a balanced urban plan. This will really spike the traffic conditions at Saratoga-Sunnyvale and Saratoga Avenue - and will aggravate ALL our neighbors, It does NOT meet the structure of the plan that I had proposed here. We have moved forward with a plan that I could never ratify or support.Â
This will Disfigure our city forever: The story gets worse: In 4 years, after we have failed to build the housing units, developers will show up and pick up any and all Saratoga sites based on SB-35, circumventing a city council review or public hearing. Make sure you capture videos of Saratoga today - it will be radically different in a few years - beginning with the 10 story housing site, the first of its kind.
Remember you heard it from me today:Â The madness is only beginning;Â Any property that was discarded today or not considered for our housing element, may very well be back in play in just a few years. All bets are off!
Questions I asked at yesterday's meeting: I asked our city manager about the traffic issues (as expressed above). He agreed that it is a big problem, but mentioned that HCD allows us to put such sites and does not take traffic issues into consideration. I pointed out why it is important for us to still come up with a good plan - no matter how HCD wants to force us down a wrong path that is going to wreck Saratogaâs future. We cannot stop wearing that hat of trying to do good for Saratoga and to protect our future. I asked the city attorney what happens after we have failed to build the required housing at the midpoint, and SB-35 kicks in. The city attorney didnât have any solutions except to push the ballot measure. He confirmed the disastrous outcome if we fail to meet the number of permits - which is VERY likely.
Bottomline - we are caving into a false narrative and a bad plan that is the foundation of a historic land grab,
Here are the final sites - compare it to the postcard sites:
Here is the slide deck presented by city staff
Prospect/ Lawrence: 10 stories || 410 housing units - same as postcard
Fellowship Plaza: 3 stories || 80 housing units - same as postcard
Gateway: 3 stories || 241 housing units, was 273 in the postcard
Village East: 3 stories || 87 housing units, was 61 in the postcard
Saratoga Avenue: 3 stories || 344 housing units, was 597 in the postcard
Cox/Paseo Presada: 0 housing units was 105 in the postcard
Wardell: 3 stories || 10 housing units, same as postcard
Allendale/Chester: 3 stories || 24 housing units, same as postcard
Quito/Pollard: 3 stories || 10 housing units, same as postcard
Note: Story and units may flex all the way to the Housing Element submission deadline
The city will start exploring only these sites to be fitted into our Housing Element submission and for the General plan updates. The city will engage an EIR consultant to conduct above.
Feedback to the city council can be sent by emailing : saratoga_cc@saratoga.ca.us
Feedback from Rhonda
The point of our message along with so many other Saratogans is you and the rest of the City Council should be fighting this edict from the State. You stated ââŚ. the Housing Element Update is not something that the City entered into voluntarily.â ÂThis means Saratogaâs capitulation, resignation and acceptance of this Housing Element from the State.
The message from your residents is clear. Find ALL means and measures you can use legally apply to fight this at the State level. What specifically is the City of Saratoga doing to fight back against this at the State level?
The Council claims to âcare deeplyâ about residentsâ perspective, and yet you are ramming this through over tremendous, unprecedented resident objections. Legal injunctions filed at the State level is what needs to happen prior to recalls and measures to repeal this. There is absolutely no reason to start changing the character of Saratoga prematurely without significant effort to push this back.
With regard to a formalized, measured and professional suburban planning process⌠where is that in this mishmash of sites that are cobbled together without regard to:
- neighborhood infrastructure,Â
- increased traffic,Â
- burdens to some schools far outweighing those to others, andÂ
- dramatically and irrevocably damaging the character of Saratoga life and our neighborhoods forever. Â
Where is your leadership on this issue Mayor and City Council?  The only Council member pushing back on this is Mr. Kumar but he can not do this alone. When are you all going to get on board with Mr. Kurmar and the vast majority of your constituents and push back at ALL levels against this debacle?
We ARE subscribed to the Housing Element info channels. That is why we are asking for answers to questions resulting from the Councilâs continued push to prematurely settle on sites and not listen to the will of the People.
Best regards,Rhonda
Feedback to council from Marc
I hope this message will be added to the official record for the housing elements.I addressed the council during meetings as well as by email several times in the past, and I thanked you for your effort in trying to find a solution to the Housing Element topic, willing that I was, against all odds, to believe that you were there, faithful to your oath, to serve the population of Saratoga.
I donât feel like thanking the council would be appropriate, now that the masks have finally come off.
You asked for feedback from the community and you received a lot of feedback, mostly pointing out some of the most egregious aspects of your proposal.
In hindsight, the process went as follows:
¡     You came up with an astoundingly outrageous but conveniently self-serving proposal, complete with 10-story (appropriately named by someone else) middle-finger salute tower at Prospect and Lawrence
¡     You requested feedback (mandatory)
¡     You heard the feedback (mandatory â and probably painful, but listening was optional)
¡     You came back with the original, insane proposal and called it a vote
Given all the opportunities you had to listen to feedback, sheer carelessness and incompetence cannot, alone, explain the result that was reached. Other people looking at the process and results might call it abuse of power or, simply, corruption.
Nothing is further from my mind, though, and I know that legal terms should only be used by lawyers, as the laws of the land are designed to protect people in power, lest they have to face the consequences.
With that, your job is done and, if you donât have any conscience, you will sleep well at night.
In a final note, I will thank council member Kumar for his tireless energy in service of the community.
Feedback from John
I am writing you to express my utter dissatisfaction with your final list of Housing Element opportunity sites. After several meetings where you received unprecedented community feedback, you have essentially ended up right where we started. I have concerns in the following areas:
In our case, itâs clear that you (and the rest of South of 85) was not willing to share even a small percentage of the load of this ridiculous mandate and thereby failed the most basic test of leadership. I used to be the President of my homeownerâs association. I often made decisions that went against my personal interests but were in the best interests of the communityâŚbecause that was my job. In your deliberations, I did not observe even once any one of you making a decision that went against your personal interests and was in the best interest of the City. Instead, you recused yourselves and magically, the votes on those matters always went in favor of the recuser. I voted for some of you, a vote which I now regret. I voted for you to do whatâs right for the City, not to vote on issues based on your personal feelings. The casual observer sees whatâs going on and wonât soon forget this. Â
The best contemporary example of leadership in recent memory has been shown by Ukrainian President Zelensky by staying, facing certain death and fighting for his country. Leaders do not ask their people to do anything that they arenât willing to do themselves.Â
Objective Guidelines. You all used highly subjective assessment criteria when considering the opportunity sites. The best thing you could have done was to use the HCD Guidelines for identifying locations for Very-low and Low-Income units. That is the criteria that the State will likely consider when reviewing your submission. Not only were your criteria subjective, they changed based on site under consideration (sometimes it was traffic, sometimes it was safety of children, other times it was whether the owner wanted to develop and others it was evacuations concerns) was difficult to watch and completely unfair and unprofessional.1.    Safety. There was much discussion of safety of the children near Quito-Pollard. Not once did you mention the poor children (mostly not Saratoga residents) who will now have to cross Lawrence & Prospect during the AM/PM peak hours with the addition of the traffic from the Costco, El Paseo and the additional housing sites you have identified near there. Are Saratogaâs children more valued than those who attend Prospect High School? Should a child be harmed at that intersection due to excessive traffic, you will bear, at a minimum, some moral culpability.Â
2.     Traffic. You seemed to be swayed by some residentsâ traffic concerns at Saratoga Avenue & Fruitvale and Quito-Pollard yet you completely ignored the traffic concerns at Lawrence & Prospect, Lawrence & Saratoga Ave and the Gateway areas. Ms. Pedro, on multiple occasions, warned you that traffic issues would/must be considered in the EIR process. It would have been fairer to have identified sites independent of traffic concerns and have let an independent analysis eliminate sites if traffic conditions warrant. While it is true that Quito is a 1-lane road in each direction, Pollard Road is 2-lanes each direction, just like Saratoga Sunnyvale and Saratoga Avenue and Pollard Road connects to Winchester which connects to Highway 85. Traveling down Quito is not the only route to Highway 85 from the Quito-Pollard area. The City knows that traffic at Lawrence & Saratoga and Lawrence & Prospect will be awful as a result of the El Paseo development because they wrote a letter to San Jose indicating as much. It is bewildering as to why you would then proceed to dump nearly all of the RHNA housing allocation to this very part of town.Â
1.    Bagel Shop. Evacuation concerns were brought up as a reason to take the Bagel Shop off the list. You all obviously know that the City-approved evacuation site (CERT) for Pierce Road is the Argonaut Center. Also, a public records request has revealed that the Santa Clara County Sheriff has no record of ever having to evacuate Pierce Road.  Â
WHAT NEXT? See below