Relentless Inquiry

Sunnyvale is having a “Vision Meeting” this Saturday, and has a survey questionnaire for residents to fill out.

Here are my answers. If you live here too, I encourage you to participate– apparently they only bother to ask for our input every decade or so. 😉

Sunnyvale Vision Questionnaire
Share your vision of Sunnyvale with us.
This survey gives you an opportunity to participate in building Sunnyvale's future.

The comments we receive from our community will be part of the decision-making process in creating a vision for Sunnyvale's future. These are the building blocks which will become part of the City's General Plan … a document that will guide development and redevelopment within Sunnyvale.

This opportunity to help create an overall vision for our City only happens once a decade. Don't miss this opportunity to help shape Sunnyvale's future.

1. What do you consider to be the City of Sunnyvale’s most important assets that should be preserved into the future?

Library– don't mess it up with too much fancy Library of the Future stuff, please! Concentrate on expanding the collection.

Greenspace; they're not making more of it. The new community gardens are a GREAT step in the right direction and should expand to other locations as well.

2. What do you think represent the most significant challenges for the City’s future?

Gentrification, to the detriment of community. The housing bubble is starting to burst, but prices are so high that many have been forced out. We are mid-40's professional couple, combined income in the $(blank)K range, and we ended up buying an older mobile rather than play housing roulette. Also should be some attention to preserving historical or vernacular architecture, eg all those charming little fruit-worker bungalows near downtown S'vale, before they are all bulldozed for 2K square foot 'dream homes'.

Green City vs local developments; for example, in our mobile park, we cannot install solar hot water or PV panels. Need incentives (tax credits?) and specific city-level override of rules in developments that prohibit solar.

Transit: Need overflow caltrain parking most urgently; lot is *always* full during the day and I either have to go to Mt View or park several blocks away and hike it.

Power Infr: Man, PG&E has gotten *fragile*. We see it more here in the mobile parks, but it happens all over Sunnyvale. Santa Clara has their own power infrastructure. Why can't we host a plant over near the SMaRT center? Maybe do some kind of cogeneration from the landfill methane stacks, or start a (oo! I bet we could get Fed money!) WVO/biodiesel generation plant, and recycle WVO from Sunnyvale businesses. Think how much fryolater oil you could get from McDonald's, BK, Inn&Out, and numerous other S'vale food outlets.

3. What do you think are the most important things that could be added to enhance the quality of life in Sunnyvale?

I'm sure you're tired of hearing about the White Elephant, err the mall renovation. But we're so tired of looking at that stupid fence! Not even 'the wave' anymore.

*Keep* the town n country, it *works* and goes with the cobblestone Murphy Street. If there are any vacancy problems cropping up, it's because folks still think you're going to demolish it! So let them know it will stay!

Start using immediately the space left by the parking structure teardown (what a waste!! unless it was seismically compromised or something) for street fairs and festivals, high-school carwash fundraisers, etc. Let somebody put a christmas tree lot on it. Just get rid of the boards and 'dead zone' feeling asap.

Definitely get rid of the idea to trash all the apartments around there for office buildings, we don't need more see-throughs. What about live/work developments, to encourage the small businesses that are the lifeblood of typical towns? The folks who don't just come for a few years, cash out, and take off? They are what really make up a town, and they've been getting short shrift for a dozen years or so now, in favor of 'development' and keeping up with the MtView Jonses. Quit that!

4. How should we accommodate expected growth in population? Are there specific areas of the City where new housing should be concentrated?

Keep the housing OUT of neighborhoods where there is not already a lot of apartment housing. Would rather see some of those 1-story or 1+garage-story older apartments redeveloped into 3 or 4 story units than to see greenspace disappear and become big complexes. The Cherry Orchards development seems to be a big success– would like to see more like it. Too bad the lot across the street on the same side is now yet another low-density mini-mall, like we need more of those! Who approved that?! Oh well.

Rezone the heck out of some of the real-estate along El Camino and the major feeder routes. The big new condo/townhouse developments along Mary at Washington are great– they are on the main strip, so they don't destroy the neighborhood integrity or create a parking problem. More like that! Especially with a business storefront or two or 3 in the development.

Also time for storage real estate to convert– there are vastly better uses for that strip along Bernardo than u-locking storage units, and ditto several other areas. Get Public Storage or similar to come in on El Camino behind one of the big-box stores instead, and develop those storage areas as high-density housing with a park-like feel (eg, require landscaping/greenspace, not just shove the buildings together)

5. What specific types of industries and jobs should we attract to Sunnyvale? What should Sunnyvale’s role be in the regional economy?

Sunnyvale has an opportunity to be more than just a bedroom community for MView and San Jose– which, alas, is what it mostly is now. There is starting to be more biotech in Sunnyvale, which could be encouraged.

6. Should we maintain the existing level of City services? What new or expanded services would you suggest? What services should be reduced or eliminated?

Can't say I have a lot to say about this. (well, ok, I did) Get rid of the Library of the Future thing, and stop automatically selling off donated books. Need a process to eval them for the collection– I get miffed when I see stuff on the Friends of the Library table that isn't in the darn collection. Hello?! Instead of wasting money trying to tart up the Library, add some space to it and put more of the collection out. What are all those buildings that come right up next to the library? Do they DO anything? Don't try to build some fancy new library, it's just not needed.

The Mt View library, while fancy and new, is just unfriendly somehow (sterile?) and the collections are actually smaller than Sunnyvale in many areas due to the amount of 'open space' they have there. Their book auto-checkout looks really swoopy (woo, stainless and clear lexan!) but actually malfunctions much more frequently than the consoles that Sunnyvale uses. *Keep our library useful!* Resist the temptation to tart it up in the name of 'progress'. It's a busy, functional place right now, and I don't see the same kind of attention being paid to functionality in the process as to swoopy-doopyness. It's trying to be a community center, and we already HAVE one.

7. How can we enhance the sense of community in our City?

Some sense of unification of the city area would be nice. Hard to tell where Sunnyvale begins and ends! OK, we don't need those fancy-schmancy brown signs like Los Altos, but maybe some kind of gradual street sign replacement with something that is specific to Sunnyvale? Just a street sign with a cal poppy on the corner, or add signs that identify neighborhoods at strategic crossroads. I live near Lawrence & Tasman and didn't understand what was meant by “Lakewood” wrt Sunnyvale until recently.

Add regional events in the parks.

Have block-party programs with mini-grants.

8. To what extent should the City become a regional participant in protecting air quality, reducing greenhouse emissions, conserving energy and reducing runoff into streams and the Bay?

Very, very, very large extent! Can Sunnyvale offer an attractive location or package to a startup or small firm to create a biodiesel and/or waste veggie oil (WVO) fuel provider? Offer some kind of sticker for hybrid/ZEV/biodiesel drivers saying “I help keep Sunnyvale green!”

Get some kind of perk, like free parking pass at local garage or similar to folks in Sunnyvale who can show that in the past year they've reduced their energy or water consumption by some arbitrary but achievable amount– 10%? 25% as shown by photocopies of utility bills.

Start a Cool Roofs program, with a streamlined permit process, for folks wanting to whitewash or seal-kote their dark roofs for summer insulation.

Consider requiring that repaving of city lots must be done with the new permeable type paving, which vastly reduces runoff. Do a study to see if the recycled rubber 'paving' like is used in playgrounds and trails in some places can be used.

Work with volunteers and local bike shops to sponsor 'bike tuneups in the park' days periodically, where folks bring in their bicycles to get their tires aired up, a little lube, can buy reflectors to make the bikes street legal, etc. BTW, LOVE the S'vale bike paths maps.

9. If you had to select three phrases which describe the Sunnyvale of which you are proud, which three would you select? (please check three)