Core Companies to build the Santa Clara #agrihood

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From Core Companies website:

"Core's proposed concept of an innovative, community-oriented development including affordable senior apartments and luxury homes and agricultural open space in the Valley of Heart’s Delight is taking root. On September 29th, Santa Clara City Council selected Core to lead master planning and development of the remaining acreage on Winchester. Core now enters into an exclusive agreement with the City of Santa Clara to continue neighborhood outreach and site design. Construction is currently slated to begin by January 2017.

To hear about updates and opportunities to participate in design, email: info@thecorecompanies.com with subject line “BAREC Design.”"

 

What can I do now? How can I help?

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Attend the City Council, Tuesday, Sept. 22, 2015 - 7pm

BAREC proposals will be on the agenda.

AND: Please write a letter (in your own words) to the Mayor and City Council telling them how you feel about this project and process.  Below, you will find some thoughts and ideas you might be able to use to help shape your message:

Before writing your letters to the City Council, you may want to keep these ideas in mind:

  • We are seeking to work with and collaborate with the city as part of this process
  • There is, and has been, a very long and intense interest in the BAREC property
  • We are asking the Councilmembers for help –- it’s not they who have ignored our requests for inclusion, it’s the city staff (specifically, the City Manager’s office, although that is changing)
  • We are not against development. We just want to help shape a unique, sustainable and smart plan
  • At the 6/23 and 8/22 council meetings, we heard the Mayor instruct Santa Clara City staff to involve citizens in this process
  • We approach them believing that Santa Clara's City Councilmembers respect the citizens and support our right to have a say in our city’s future
  • We want Santa Clara to be a leader in cutting edge, green and healthy living development


With these ideas in mind, some of the thoughts that you might incorporate into the letters to Mayor and City Council are:

  • We have tried to work with city staff towards being involved in the decision-making process about what is eventually created at the BAREC site; but they continue to be unresponsive and routinely exclude citizen input
  • We are long-time residents of City of Santa Clara (or, if not, concerned citizens) who care very deeply about this remaining six acres that have such a high profile location with its long agricultural and teaching/learning heritage and history
  • The city should be concerned about transparency but, instead, everything being done to develop this BAREC property appears to happen behind closed doors
  • There is a deep distrust needlessly being fostered between the city and its residents that is neither healthy nor productive for either of them
  • This includes a high degree of frustration within the voter base of Santa Clara who believe that the city cares only about big developers and big business at the expense of taxpaying residents
  • The citizens of Santa Clara are strongly invested in what happens at this BAREC development site and have ideas for this property that would serve seniors, low income residents, veterans, schoolchildren and families all the while keeping an open space with a creative urban farming element (here you can mention the term “agrihood” in some context)

These are some of the points that should very clearly be directed to the City Council.  Please remember how it is critical that these letters are written in the author’s voice and that they be expressed from the heart. We have a community of extremely bright and creative people. These letters should reflect the passion that all of us have for these issues.

Please send letters to:

Mayor Jamie Mathews and Council

1500 Warburton Ave
Santa Clara, CA 95050

To:    MayorAndCouncil@santaclaraca.gov

Cc:
The Santa Clara Weekly paper: scweekly@ix.netcom.com
The San Jose Mercury News: local@mercurynews.com
Rose Garden Resident: Leeta-Rose Ballester: lballester@community-newspapers.com
Metro Newspaper: Jennifer Wadsworth: jenniferw@metronews.com
Win6 team: info@win6village.org

Thank you so much!

Kirk Vartan

Agrihoods Around the Country→

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"Ever wish you could live at your CSA? Or move to a neighborhood where everyone is as excited about fresh, healthy food as you are?

All over the United States people are embracing local food production in an exciting new way. Called 'agrihoods,' this new type of neighborhood serves up farm-to-table living in a cooperative environment. Instead of being built around a pool or tennis court, these housing developments are centered around a farm . . . ."

So starts a great Shareable.net article which then goes on to cover and link to twelve agrihoods all around the country. Number 12 is particularly interesting:

"Specifically designed with the senior citizen in mind, Prarie Commons will be a pedestrian-friendly development built around a 15-acre lake in Olathe, Kansas. On-site, Tibbet's Farm will transform the existing single-crop operation into a certified organic farm that produces a variety of fruits, vegetables and small-scale livestock. In addition to the farm, a series of community gardens, a farmers' market, cooking school, restaurants and a small grocery market will "reintroduce the heritage of fresh food into a contemporary development."