The Loma Prietan
September 2001
Trouble in Garlic Country
by Autumn Bernstein
Heading south on 101, just a few miles past the hubbub of Silicon Valley, an unmistakable smell fills the air: garlic. The high-tech campuses and hillside homes give way to rolling farmlands and open ranchlands, and you know you’re getting close to the Garlic Capital of the World: Gilroy.
This small farming community, nestled at the southernmost end of the Santa Clara Valley, is known the world over for its annual Garlic Festival, when garlic fans descend on the town for homegrown treats like garlic ice cream. For years, Gilroy has been a bucolic retreat from the chaos of nearby Silicon Valley. While most of the Santa Clara Valley—once called the “Valley of Heart’s Delight” for its fertile farmlands—has been paved over to make room for high-tech industry, Gilroy is still surrounded by thousands of acres of productive farmland and open, rolling hillsides.
But that may be changing, if development interests have their way. There’s
trouble brewing in garlic country, threatening to turn Gilroy into just another cookie-cutter, traffic-choked Silicon Valley suburb. Like many small towns on the outermost edge of the Bay Area, Gilroy is facing tremendous growth pressures. Driven out by skyrocketing housing costs, Silicon Valley “refugees” are fleeing to these small towns in search of affordable housing. As a result, prime farmland and open space is paved over to make way for subdivisions, strip malls, and office parks. This sprawling new development destroys the regional farm economy, and tears apart the fabric of these small towns.
Nowhere is this threat more real than in Gilroy. Two recent battles over sprawling new development exemplify the struggle for Gilroy’s future: 1) the proposal to build a large subdivision and two golf courses on the 5,500-acre Sargent Ranch, and 2) the proposal to build a high-tech campus on prime farmland within the Gilroy Agricultural Preserve. One of these proposals
has been stalled for now while the other continues to threaten Gilroy’s quality of life.
Before the golf course proposal appeared in early May, we had heard about the Sargent Ranch and caught glimpses of it while driving south on 101 between Gilroy and Salinas. Even from the freeway, this 5,500-acre ranch is beautiful. Several hundred acres of prime farmland line the freeway with rolling, oak-studded hillsides as a backdrop. Two year-round creeks and their tributaries wind through the hillsides, providing miles of riparian habitat. Popu-lations of endangered steelhead return
each winter to spawn here. Rare geologic formations give rise to the name of one
of the creeks, Tar Creek. In places on the ranch, tar actually oozes from the ground.
The ranch is located in the southernmost corner of Santa Clara County,
several miles southwest of Gilroy. And it is unusually large. Much of the Santa Cruz Mountains has been fragmented into little pieces, while this 7,000-acre expanse of open hillside land is still intact. This fact, combined with the unique habitat and geologic features located on the ranch, have made the Sargent Ranch a hot spot for preservation. Land conservation groups have been eyeballing Sargent for years.
Unfortunately, they’re not the only ones who’ve had their eyes on Sargent Ranch.
In 1992, Sierra Club members and others helped defeat a massive development proposal that called for 4,000 estate homes, an office building, a resort hotel and two golf courses. Shortly thereafter, a developer named Wayne Pierce bought Sargent Ranch and began devising his own development plan. In early May 2001, Pierce submitted his proposal for two golf courses and 150 luxury homes.
I toured the ranch with Sierra Club activist Mandy Rose, and representatives of
the Santa Clara Valley Audubon Society and the Committee for Green Foothills.
As we headed up the steep dirt road into the ranch, I was astonished at its beauty. Ancient oaks crowned the hillsides, and shady bunches of willows, cottonwoods and sycamores lined the creeks.
Our host, an associate of the developer, began pointing out where the houses, roads, and golf courses would be. We spotted several female deer meandering down a grassy slope where a future mansion would loom. The site of golf course # 1, a low, boggy swale, was known habitat for tiger salamanders and endangered red-legged frogs.
We left the ranch newly motivated to protect this beautiful piece of land. Over the next month, our coalition of environmentalists lobbied the County Supervisors to reject the development application. We gained support from the San Jose Mercury News and numerous elected officials and planners in the area. Our efforts paid off well; so well, in fact, that Pierce actually withdrew his proposal just hours before the County Board of Supervisors was scheduled to vote on it. This tremendous victory ensures that the rare beauty of the Sargent Ranch is safe for now.
Gilroy Agricultural Preserve
Unfortunately, the picture does not look so rosy for the Gilroy Agricultural (Ag) Preserve, where a proposal for a sprawling, high-tech campus threatens to undermine the integrity of the one intact farm area left in the County.
The Gilroy Ag Preserve is a 14,000-acre patchwork of family farms that represents one of the last strongholds of farming in Santa Clara County. Developers are asking the city of Gilroy to allow development of—you guessed it—a high-tech campus on 660 acres of land within the Ag Preserve. This development would kick open the door to sprawl throughout the Preserve, signaling a death knell for farming in Santa Clara County.
Proponents of the development argue that Gilroy needs the jobs. And they’re right. Gilroy has a high unemployment rate and could use some job growth. What they don’t tell you is that Gilroy has plenty of room to grow without sprawling into the Ag Preserve. Over 1,000 acres of vacant land zoned for industry lie unused. In fact, there is enough vacant land within Gilroy’s existing urbanized city limits that it would fit the entire city of Mountain View. By building new jobs in downtown, Gilroy would give a boost to struggling businesses and protect the Ag Preserve at the same time.
Unfortunately, the developers have made some progress, securing early votes to annex the land in question. However, the final City Council vote on annexation won’t take place until late this fall, and
the Preserve could also be protected if subsequent approvals by the County and the City are not granted.
Opposition to the project is growing as the people of Gilroy become aware of the implications of this development. A dedicated group of citizen activists in Gilroy has vowed to protect the Ag Preserve and promote smart growth that preserves Gilroy’s small-town way of life. They recently formed an organization called Save Open Space (SOS) that is dedicated to protecting the Ag Preserve. SOS meets in Gilroy on a regular basis.
Autumn Bernstein is the South Bay Field Coordinator for Greenbelt Alliance.
Residents in and around Gilroy are becoming increasingly aware of suburban sprawl and its impact, something that residents of San Jose and environs have had to deal with for decades. Without doubt, long-time residents have seen dramatic changes as central and southern Santa Clara County has grown. Regrettably, many of these changes have not been for the better. We are faced with ever-increasing amounts of traffic congestion, worsening air quality, a lack of affordable and even available housing, and the loss of valuable farmland, wildlife habitat, and natural green space. From Coyote Valley to Gilroy to Hollister and San Benito County, many of our remaining open spaces are under threat.
What You Can Do:
If you live in San Jose, write your City Council Member asking him/her to re-think the current plans for Coyote Valley development. More of Coyote Valley should be protected, and if there is growth, it should be done in a smarter, more sustainable fashion. Even the San Jose Mercury News has editorialized in favor of stepping back and re-planning Coyote Valley.
The address for all City Council members is 801 N. First Street, 6th floor, San Jose, CA 95110.
If you live in the Gilroy area, contact Save Open Space (SOS). They can be reached by e-mail or by regular mail at 777 First Street, Box #226, Gilroy, CA 95020.
If you would like to help the Sierra Club protect natural open spaces and put an end to sprawl in the South Bay, please make a donation to the Loma Prieta Chapter’s End Sprawl/Save Open Space fund. Make checks payable to the Sierra Club Foundation (write “End Sprawl Fund” in the memo space) and send it to the Chapter office, 3921 East Bayshore Road, #204, Palo Alto, CA 94303.