6/1/2016 -- Board Meeting Minutes

Post date: Jul 16, 2016 7:09:50 PM

River Oaks Neighborhood Association

Wednesday, June 1, 2016

Elan Meeting Room, 7:00-8:00pm

Attending

From RONA: President Jean Marlowe, VP Mike Bertram, Secretary Laura Carns

From City of San José, Council District 4 Office: Jonathan Padilla

From California State Senate, District 10 Office: Tim Orozco

Lan Diep, Candidate for San Jose City Council, District 4

and about 5 other community members.

MINUTES

1. Bike-lane zebra bumps and other ROP traffic issues

   1. Paul emailed, Jean posted it to NextDoor. Zebra bumps will be removed "soon."

   2. The bots dots will still make noise even if the zebra bumps go. Can we tear those out too?

   3. The noisy manhole cover by Jim Meek's place is still noisy. No action from the city yet.

   4. Green "bike lane" paint is expensive, they need to get all the intersections in the city before they come back and paint more of our street.

   5. 4 way stop sign at Research & Elan Village has been installed.

   6. Resident requests:

      1. A speed-board (automated radar). District 4 is going to buy one just for D4, can move it around without getting DOT involved.

      2. Zanker light should have a protected left.

      3. Why is ROP still 35 mph? The school is coming, see if that will cause it to slow down.

         1. More crosswalks where pedestrians are jaywalking: Crescent/Aire and Parkside/Millbrook. Can use Irvine's lobbyist Jim Canine to get pressure for improvements.

2. NSJ Development Policy, Traffic Issues

   1. Where is the money for traffic mitigation? What fees were supposed to be collected and where has it been spent? Where are the improvements?

   2. Original NSJ plan was to use the Traffic Impact Fee to address issues in the Deficiency Plan. Page 33 of the Deficiency Plan -- Phase I congestion management plan must be done before moving to Phase II. That means the recommended improvements to North 1st, Montague, Trimble, Oakland, etc... must be complete. However, because of the "economy", the city lowered the TIF from $15/sqft to $5 and even as low as $2! We now have a $50 million shortfall.

   3. Spoke to Paul, Brazil at DOT. "It's complicated" but RONA needs to know because city council is voting in August on more housing in Phase I. Council has directed staff to look into ways to make up the short fall. Some ideas they're floating with: tax future construction ($35m); use other General Fund money ($8m); an income tax ($7m). RONA would like to follow up with DOT: where is the $$? what $ should there be? what was spent? where are the improvments?

   4. Jean has a contact who is a traffic engineer and not a RONA resident. He thinks the city is not doing a good job in NSJ and is willing to proofread and advise RONA on these issues.

   5. Need some people to dig thru the original NSJ plan for requirements we can hold the city council to.

3. the Council plan to release more NSJ housing units

   1. SuperMicro is pushing for workforce housing, 1500 units.

   2. Cit Planner "Jason" said they'd like to do it "right." EIR was originally planned for January, mayor is trying to pull that back to August. Public meeting on EIR should be this summer. Supposedly there's a completed traffic and land-use study, need to get copies of this.

   3. Most available locations are really small, except for one big block of Cisco property along Cisco Way.

   4. City is worried that the early Phase I buildout did not achieve the desired density for long term, might push for extremely high-density in the future: 108 units/acre, which is generally 10-story buildings. City is also worried that the original NSJ plan called for too much infrastructure between phases, and also too much parkland per person.

   5. We need to get involved so that city doesn't gut the NSJ plan while scrambling for $$!

4. Rick Santos reports that he went to the neighborhood commission. This commission advises the city council on neighborhood issues. D4 gets 2 representatives from local neighborhood associations. RONA should get more involved in this because it will give us a bigger voice.