More than 600 acres of agricultural preserve targeted by city council as future site for industrial park.

Some Monterey Countyites thought they had been spared an influx of Santa Clara Valley workers when Cisco suspended its plans for a huge Coyote Valley campus.

But if the city of Gilroy has its way, more homes, cars and all the nasty byproducts they bring might be Monterey-bound.

Gilroy city officials are considering building a Cisco-sized industrial park on 664 acres of farmland--now part of the 14,000-acre Gilroy Ag Preserve located at the southernmost tip of Santa Clara County.

In April, the Gilroy City Council gave a preliminary go-ahead to extend the city''s General Plan boundary to include the 664 acres for future industrial development. The city''s environmental consultant is currently studying the environmental impacts of annexing the farmland, and will draft an Environmental Impact Report by the end of the year.

The council is likely to adopt a new General Plan in early 2002--unless local preservation groups can stop it. A Gilroy citizens'' group, Save Open Space, will host a town hall meeting tonight (Aug. 23) at 7pm, at old Gilroy City Hall, 7400 Monterey Road, on the corner of Monterey Road and Sixth Street.

Gary Patton, LandWatch Monterey County''s executive director and the meeting''s keynote speaker, says if the project is approved, it will add to the poor jobs-to-housing ratio in Santa Clara County. He says it will continue to drive workers south to Monterey County, paving over open space for housing.

"The same kinds of impacts that would occur if Cisco were built [in Coyote Valley] are inherent in this proposal," Patton says, pointing to statistics that say for every seven jobs created in Silicon Valley, only one house is built. "This proposal is taking ag land out of production and replacing it with major industrial development, and that is going to generate new housing demands which we have no reason to believe are going to be satisfied in Gilroy. Build the industries and let someone else provide the housing--and Salinas is a lot closer to Gilroy than San Jose."

Gilroy''s own reports on the potential impacts associated with annexing the 664 acres of Ag Preserve land spell traffic and housing trouble for both counties.

According to a March 8 General Plan Update Hydrology and Traffic Report, developing the farmland into an industrial campus would generate an estimated 5,000 new jobs, translating into 40,000 new car trips every day. To accommodate the traffic, the report suggests widening Highway 101 to eight lanes between Gilroy and Prunedale. A traffic impact fee would be increased by 45 percent to fund the necessary traffic improvements.

The land is also located within the Llagas Creek 110-year overbank floodplain area which would mean en estimated $13.2 million in flood- control facilities costs.

David Collier, one of the founding members of Save Open Space and a former Gilroy planning commissioner for five years, adds that the current General Plan already includes roughly 1,200 acres zoned for industrial growth.

"By our best estimates, that''s a 60- to 70-year supply of industrial land," Collier says. "And while proponents of development say that the 664 virgin acreage is more suitable to a large software development [compared to 1,200 acres scattered throughout the city], we would argue that there are ample large parcels open for development. Up to this point, no software developer of any size has moved to Gilroy, and to turn around and say all this land is needed, there''s really no historical basis for that."

At press time, Gilroy Planning Director Bill Faus, lead planner on the project, was out of town and could not be reached for comment.