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In a landmark vote early Wednesday morning after more than 10 hours of debate, protests and arrests, the San Jose City Council unanimously approved the sale of more than $100 million in land west of Highway 87 to the tech giant Google.
Mayor Sam Liccardo called the sale an important “first step” toward achieving a vibrant mixed-use development in a region that is dominated by parking lots and vacant industrial lots.
But the vote was not without controversy. Police on Tuesday arrested eight protesters who disrupted the meeting. Shortly after 9 p.m., officers used bolt cutters to remove protesters who had chained themselves to chairs in the council chambers before arresting them. They were released early Wednesday morning.
The commotion came nearly eight hours into the meeting, after the public comment period ended, as Councilman Raul Peralez called on several community organizations protesting the land sale to acknowledge the financial help they have received from Google.
More than an hour later, the council returned to empty chambers, with police directing everyone but staff and press to what had been an overflow room to watch a livestream of the deliberations.
Liccardo said police had advised the move for security reasons and told him protests were likely to continue to disrupt council deliberations if people were allowed back in, but the decision fueled criticism that the city was operating behind closed doors.
Outside, protesters chanted — the sound filtering into the largely empty chamber.
“This is how people win the fight,” said 23-year-old San Jose resident Samirah Shri, a member of Serve the People, a grassroots organization fighting gentrification, who was escorted from the chambers for clapping during public comment. “Sam Liccardo can pretend we’re not here, but we’re clearly here.”
Later, around 5 a.m. Wednesday, Councilman Lan Diep’s car window was smashed outside his home. It was immediately unclear whether the incident was linked to the Google vote.
The sale of several parcels of land near Diridon Station to Google, despite concerns that the project will send already high home prices soaring and push vulnerable people out of the city, would reshape downtown.
“I don’t think there can be any compromise because the housing crisis has gotten really bad,” Shri said. “And Google’s response is to add more tech to displace more people. The only way to reverse any of the damage is to start creating more housing.”
But, Liccardo cautioned, “one company is not going to make or break our city.”
The tech giant is planning to develop some 50 acres west of Highway 87 into offices, homes, shops, restaurants and parks. Initially, Google is set to spend slightly more than $100 million on land previously owned by the city and the Successor Agency to the San Jose Redevelopment Agency, but the company could ultimately spend some $220 million if it exercises a planned option to buy surface parking lots near the SAP Center in the future.
Exactly what the company wants to build is not yet clear, and there are a number of other issues to be addressed, including a proposal to raise building height limits in the area, rezoning many of the parcels of land, and finding a substitute parking solution for lots currently used by people attending events at the SAP Center.
Mark Golan, Google’s vice president of real estate investments, told the council the company had “learned a tremendous amount about the local landscape” during public meetings and walks around the area with local neighborhood groups.
“We’ve learned their aspirations as well as their fears,” Golan said, adding that the company is committed to prioritizing housing.
“We’re at the beginning of a long road,” Golan said.
Before it was cleared, hundreds of people packed the Council Chambers Tuesday, with dozens more crowding into the overflow room. More than 100 people — a mix of local residents and representatives of different organizations — signed up to speak during a public comment period that began mid-afternoon and stretched for hours. Several protesters were removed at Liccardo’s request during that time after booing and clapping, prompting one to shout “Trump in San Jose” as he was escorted out by security.
During the public comment period, many praised the land sale as a way to inject new life into a downtown that has struggled to thrive as its suburbs sprawled. Several, including a youth coding group, said Google had agreed to support their organizations in recent months.
“Great cities are associated with great corporate partners,” said Larry Stone, Santa Clara County’s assessor.
Outside City Hall on Tuesday morning, critics of the project put up a tent with a sign reading, “Welcome to Googleville.”
“People are going to be priced out of living here,” said Paul Soto, one of the protesters. Despite dozens of meetings with residents and other members of the community, Soto said the city had operated with a “lack of transparency to the point of where it’s vulgar,” adding he didn’t think the meetings allowed for real debate about the project.
Several speakers criticized the mayor and others for signing non-disclosure agreements last year to discuss the proposal before it was public.
Councilman Raul Peralez apologized for signing an NDA, acknowledging, “There’s a lot of distrust from the community…there’s a lot of skepticism.”
Liccardo told reporters ahead of the council meeting he shares housing concerns, but thinks Google can play a role in solving the city’s “affordable housing crisis.”
But several residents pointed to sky-high rent prices in Mountain View, where the tech giant is headquartered, and other cities up the Peninsula.
The project, said Emily Taina, a San Jose resident, “will benefit the wealthy white men who can afford to move here.”
But deputy City Manager Kim Walesh said the project will bring badly needed jobs to a city that right now has far more houses than career opportunities, an imbalance that has contributed to gridlocked traffic and limited funding for things like road repairs.
“I heard the desire to not be displaced,” said Vice Mayor Magdalena Carrasco. But, she said, she also sees working with Google as an economic opportunity for the city.
“What can we envision for our children on the east side of San Jose?” Carrasco said.
Councilman Don Rocha thanked the protesters for being passionate and said he was also concerned about the issue of displacement.
“There will be an impact and if you think otherwise you’re grossly mistaken,” Rocha said.
As part of the project, Google has said it will provide a series of community benefits to local residents. The specifics have not yet been worked out, but are likely to include affordable housing and education programs at local schools.
Teresa Alvarado, the San Jose director of SPUR, an organization that focuses on urban issues, said the development provides an opportunity for the city to bring positive changes to the area around Diridon.
“Having a development partner like Google who, without subsidy from the city, has committed to making direct investment in sustainable and resilient infrastructure, transit- and downtown-supporting jobs, thousands of housing units, remade complete streets, and inviting public spaces is too important to not put our full weight behind,” Alvarado said in a statement.
Unlike Amazon, which secured billions of dollars in subsidies and tax breaks when it announced its HQ2 in New York and Virginia recently, Google will not get such incentives from San Jose, prompting well-known urban studies theorist Richard Florida to suggest the city might be one of the first to really succeed when it comes to downtown redevelopment.
“San Jose,” Florida told this news organization recently, “has the opportunity to be one of the first cities to get it right.”
Liccardo and several of his colleagues on the council have also proposed mandating that 25 percent of housing in the area be affordable and endorsed the idea of a downtown district subject to a commercial impact fee that could help pay for the housing.
Next up is a development agreement, which will include rules for the project, along with specifics on what benefits the community can expect to gain and a timeframe for completing construction. Project planning and design are likely to start in 2019 and last at least a couple of years. Construction could begin around 2022 and last through 2035, if everything goes according to plan.
When the project is fully built out, the city can expect to see somewhere around $10 million each year in net revenue.
While some longtime downtown business owners are optimistic about the project in the long-term, they have concerns about how restaurants and stores will survive the construction phase, which is set to coincide with construction on BART to downtown and an overhaul of Diridon Station.
“You’d have to literally be crazy to go into the restaurant business” right now, said Dan Gordon of Gordon Biersch Brewing Company. “How do you survive the next three or four years?”
Gordon thinks the project will ultimately bring enough people to downtown — Google alone is expected to have at least 20,000 workers in the area — to support a vibrant restaurant scene and nightlife, he’d like to see the City Council take steps to support businesses that invested in San Jose years ago. The city’s minimum wage is set to rise to $15 an hour next year, and Gordon would like to see an exemption or tip credit for restaurants where workers earn income from tips.
For now, the land sale vote marks a key moment in moving the long-discussed project toward becoming a reality.
“We remain committed,” Golan, with Google, said, “to working with the city and community.”
Staff reporter Jason Green contributed reporting.
