Google Overdelivers
Last Thursday night, Google representatives met with the Station Area Advisory Group (SAAG), San Jose residents, and City Council members at San Jose City Hall to discuss the company’s first design plan for its proposed campus next to Diridon Station. While the benefits to SJ including tax receipts and downtown development are substantial from Google, it is important to remember that the company received no subsidies or discounts in buying the property for the proposed campus. This is a free market development.
Some labor-affiliated community activists and organizations have expressed concerns about the potential impact of up to 20,000 new Google employees on housing, traffic, and adjacent neighborhood impact. Many of those concerns, especially around displacement and gentrification, have been revealed as exaggerated or baseless. Nonetheless, Google's proposed plan addresses those concerns with a sophisticated, world-class proposal that incorporates city planning best practices.
Here are five things I learned about Google’s new design plan for its upcoming San Jose campus:
Transit-village design - As Diridon Station gears itself to become a popular transit hub for the eventual BART extension to San Jose and future station renovation projects, Google designers have imagined transforming the area east of the station into a modern, mixed-use urban space for both SJ residents and visitors. The development would include an open square facing station’s main entrance and a variety of businesses set up on the ground floor of the surrounding buildings. The Southern end of the new campus sits adjacent to existing neighborhoods, so Google designed the physical campus site plan to mitigate high density foot traffic in public spaces South of the Diridon transit hub and mixed-use area.
Countering Potential Displacement - The Silicon Valley housing crisis is not of Google's making. It derives from decades of restrictive zoning and land use practices implemented by generations of local politicians that constrained supply, therefore increased cost. Nonetheless, Google's plan aims to dramatically increase housing in the Diridon area—both affordable and market rate. The company plans on constructing 3,000 to 5,000 homes, well beyond what the city had anticipated for the area, as well as a hotel. Google also recently committed $1 billion (no typo) for the development of new housing in the area.
Local Jobs - Google aims to create avenues of employment and educational opportunities for middle and lower income residents in nearby communities. For example, the Mercury News reports, that “even before construction — which could stretch for more than a decade — begins, Google wants to convert the former Orchard Supply Hardware site near Highway 280 into job training space, where San Jose residents could learn construction techniques and other skills to take advantage of job opportunities offered by the Google project.”
Walkability and Integration into the Community - Underground parking will alleviate parking congestion on the surface and local streets. Furthermore, new parks, greenways, walkways, and bike lanes are all key aspects of the new campus in order to make the length of the Google development a lively, pedestrian and cycling friendly environment. The plans even show that the disconnected segments of the Los Gatos Creek Trail will be rejoined in the new development, and will allow both residential and visiting cyclists easier access to trails from the Diridon transit hub stemming directly outward toward the rest of the South Bay.
Community Input - Throughout the remainder of the project design, approval and construction, both Google campus representatives and SJ City Government officials reassure active engagement with community residents, local artists, and small businesses as well.
Discover more about Google’s new campus development here. For further information, click here, here, or here.
— by Will Newcomb, Opportunity Now Web Editor, and Class of 2019 Santa Clara University graduate, where he studied bioengineering.