This coming Tuesday is a regular meeting for City Council at the Santa Clara Council Chambers starting 7pm at 1500 Warburton Avenue Santa Clara. 

I just went to the website to look at what is on the agenda for this week as I believe that there are some residents who have requested an extention of reading the Draft EIR for the Gallery at Central Park – which is the 900 Benton, Fairfield Residential, old Kaiser site development.  These residents have petitioned the city for an extension to read the draft EIR because it is quite extensive.  The request is in view of the holiday season and the elections just gone that they need extra time to read this report.

Copies of the report can be obtained by going to the reference desk at the Santa Clara Library upstairs.  They have copies if you want to understand the impact of this development on the local community.  It discusses trees, transportation, business – you name it it’s there.  There are also images of the proposed project.  If you like a “prison cell block” look in your neighborhood you will be happy.  If you are hoping for something with a mission flavor or a Rivermark feel to it, forget it, it’s nothing like that.  More like large cynder block concrete mass construction or known in the industry as ‘budget buildings’.  The report also shows you which trees are planned for the logging mill, of which I would say MOST!  Darn it I guess the birds and the local wildlife will have to move out for a time, as will a lot of the local residents while they build this puppy over the next five years or so.

Now I’m hoping I’m right about this being on the Agenda, because as of 11.25am today the City Council agenda was not on line.  And if my memory serves me right, they should have been on line a week before the council meets but Santa Clara might do it differently.