Letter: Woodside no good for SV

EDITOR,
I urge every Scotts Valley citizen to contact the members of the Scotts Valley City Council about the Woodside Project proposed by Jim Sullivan, a San-Jose based developer. This project would comprise three commercial buildings totaling 18,000 square feet along Scotts Valley Drive, as well as 51 single-family houses.
Dene Bustichi, the mayor of Scotts Valley, wrote in the Dec. 17 Scotts Valley Press-Banner that the city has “more than 1.1 million square feet of unoccupied commercial buildings. That is a 33 percent vacancy — the largest in our city’s history” (Commentary, “Mayor’s thoughts for 2010, 2011,” Page 6).
With so many unoccupied commercial buildings, I cannot understand why the council is even considering changing both the city plan and the city code to allow a developer to put up new commercial buildings that don’t have enough parking. (The Dec. 17 Press-Banner states that “one potential problem raised by the planning commission concerned the small number of parking spaces available for both businesses and homes” (“Council weighs in on new housing development,” Page 8).)
Why hasn’t the city pushed the developer to come up with a plan that doesn’t require changes to the city plan and the city code? The council should know that developers need work just like everyone else. Either now or in the future, there will be a developer who is willing to come up with a plan that includes the adequate parking that would give whoever occupies the buildings a better chance of success. The City Council should not go ahead with a plan that could well lead to more empty buildings.
The owners of the 51 homes in the Woodside Project will probably not pay enough in taxes to cover the costs of fire, police, educational and other services. The housing component of the Woodside project will cause the citizens who already live in Scotts Valley to pay higher taxes if they want to maintain their current level of services.
The bottom line to me is that the Scotts Valley City Council would be doing a disservice to the taxpayers of Scotts Valley if they changed the city plan and city code to approve this substandard Woodside Project.
Elizabeth Johansen, Scotts Valley