March 11, 2019
Mayor Liccardo and City Councilmembers
City of San Jose
Re: March 12 Agenda Item 5.2: Please do not give Arena Green away
Honorable Mayor Liccardo and San Jose City Council members,
The Sierra Club Loma Prieta Chapter, the Santa Clara Valley Audubon Society, the California Native Plant Society Santa Clara Valley Chapter, the Committee for Green Foothills and Keep Coyote Creek Beautiful are local organizations that protect and promote open space, parks, riparian corridors and the species that live in these important landscapes. Together, we have engaged in support of good planning in the City of San Jose (Measures C, T) and in opposition of bad planning (Measure B). We now write to ask council to reject the development of a monumental structure in Arena Green, and to ask the Light Tower Corporation (LTC) to look for an alternative location for their project.
Arena Green is an extremely sensitive habitat at the confluence of two major riparian waterways, the Guadalupe River and the Los Gatos Creek. The two streams provide habitat and critical riparian corridors for endangered steelhead anadromous fish and other wildlife negotiating through an urban center. The rivers also create a migratory birds flyway. Arena Green is the biological gateway to the Guadalupe and Los Gatos watersheds - It provides birds, fish and other animals the means for dispersal on the valley floor, and into the foothills and the Santa Cruz mountains.
In a site as important as this, space around the creek is the most critical element. Without a significant buffer between human activities and the creek, the corridor will cease to function as a pathway for animal movement and migratory birds, and will become a hazard instead.
San Jose is already lacking sufficient park space for its residents. With projected increases in our population, committing park space for a structure of unknown size doesn’t make sense. Building on Arena Green decreases the availability of public open space. A different site should be selected.
We are troubled that the site selection study conducted by Steinberg Hart on behalf of LTC concluded that there would be no un-mitigable impacts to the environment at this site. Given that there was no analysis of the harm the proposed development could impose to Arena Green, such a conclusion is baseless. It seems that this study focused on the potential impacts that the environment could have on the development of the project—the exact opposite of what environmental analysis should be. This is critical flaw in the initial site selection study. The San Jose Parks and Recreation Commission also found the site selection study to be flawed, and declined to recommend Arena Green.
The selection of Arena Green exacerbates the complications of the LTC development proposal. The structure’s form is to be determined by a design competition—one where the winning project is not selected by the public but instead by jurors selected by LTC. The name “Light Tower Corporation” and the light-themed branding of their website will surely invite night-lighted structures. In both public and private meetings, LTC has not backed off of the possibility that this structure will be illuminated at night. Artificial light at night has been scientifically proven to be extremely harmful when placed in riparian habitats. It can also affect the movement of the salmon that travel through the waterways of Arena Green. These impacts will only further complicate the political and design process of the proposed development. It is in the interest of both LTC and the citizens of San Jose that this development be constructed in an area where it does not pose such a serious risk of causing ecological damage and conflicts.
Public art is often fraught with controversy, and a development as complicated as this must start off on a solid foundation. The selection of Arena Green puts this project on very shaky grounds. The trajectory is a situation where conflicts cloud the possibility of a successful iconic project for San Jose. We ask you to direct LTC to consider an alternative location, a location that garners the support of the entire community.
Respectfully,
Katja Irvin
Co-Chair, Conservation Committee
Sierra Club Loma Prieta Chapter
Shani Kleinhaus
Environmental Advocate
Santa Clara Valley Audubon Society
Linda Ruthruff,
Conservation Chair
California Native Plant Society Santa Clara Valley Chapter
Deb Kramer,
Executive Director
Keep Coyote Creek Beautiful
Julie Hutcheson,
Director of Impact
Committee for Green Foothills