3 Valley firms sue San Jose on land use

Electronic News, July 1, 1996 by Cynthia Bournellis

San Jose, Calif.--Three major Silicon Valley companies filed a lawsuit against the city of San Jose, its planning commission and its City Council to change the use of 256 acres of land designated for industrial development, possibly delaying Cisco Systems' plans to build a new corporate campus on a portion of those acres.

Tencor Instruments, Octel Communications and Quantum, along with two development firms, are challenging a proposed general plan amendment which would change the land use on Agnew State Hospital's east campus in north San Jose.

The petitioners alleged that the city of San Jose had not done the appropriate investigation regarding the impact the size of the proposed Cisco project will have on the environment. Two months ago, Cisco purchased 139 acres to build a 3.3 million-square-foot campus, which will be completed by the year 2000 and will house nearly 10,000 employees (EN, April 22).

"We are not trying to block the (Cisco) deal," said Andrew Kryder, general counsel for Quantum. "We are asking the city to do what every other company does and comply with the rules of the California Environmental Quality Act." Each petitioner owns or occupies property located in the northwestern portion of the city of Milpitas known as the Milpitas Business Park. To get an idea of the size of the business park, the Octel site covers approximately 43 acres, and Quantum's facility is about 8 million square feet.

The business park is bounded on its west side by Coyote Creek, which serves as the eastern boundary of the Cisco project. The project is expected to greatly increase the density of development on land adjacent to the business park. In addition, the planned construction of a four-lane bridge over Coyote Creek on Tasman Drive, which would connect the Cisco site to a major highway (Interstate 880), would increase the amount of morning and evening rush-hour traffic around the business park. "Traffic is pretty bad already," noted Mr. Kryder. "It often takes me 1- 1/2 hours just to travel a five-mile stretch on Highway 237 during rush hour." One source said the size of the Cisco project may increase the size of the proposed bridge to six lanes. Allen Melkesian, manager of industrial development for the Redevelopment Agency of San Jose, said the agency is waiting for feedback from traffic engineers who are currently investigating whether or not the magnitude of the Cisco project will affect the number of lanes required for the proposed bridge. "We believe the bridge will be kept to four lanes," said Mr. Melkesian.

"The costs associated with the mitigation of these adverse traffic conditions, as well as other environmental impact problems, may fall disproportionately on surrounding municipalities and companies," said Jonathan Leo, general counsel for Tencor Instruments. According to sources, the plaintiffs have already spent roughly $20 million on land donations, highway overpasses and other public improvements to accommodate the business park.

The main questions are whether the city considered the full impact of traffic on the surrounding area, what the mitigation measures relating to the traffic are and who is responsible, said one source at Octel Communications, who added that the city hasn't done a good enough job in analyzing the overall impacts the development project will have, not just the local impacts.

San Jose officials were not available for comment. A spokesperson for Cisco said that since Cisco is not a party to the suit, the company would not comment.