Following last week’s certification, three parties have appealed the planning commission’s decision.
The San Jose Sharks, Stand for San Jose (a coalition backed by the San Francisco Giants) and a resident who lives near the stadium site allege that the report, which the commission approved last week, does not adequately analyze or disclose potential impacts from traffic and parking, among other issues.
Chances are that the City Council will move forward despite the appeals. It’ll be up to the various parties to see whether or not a lawsuit is filed. The important piece of news to come out of this is the date of the council’s hearing: June 15.
newballpark.org 
considering the connections between the a’s and sharks thats not something that should be taken lightly. something is not right with the 2 parties right now and i think the problems run deeper that has been made public.
Appeals =/= lawsuits. Put it this way: I don’t think Lew Wolff was sitting in the Diamond Level on Opening Night with a Sharks hat on just to be ironic.
I never mentioned lawsuits. You did. All I said that considering the connections between the Sharks, Lew Wolff and the City of San Jose that something should have been could have been worked out already, and perhaps the Sharks complaints are deeper than we expected.
Lew Wolff may have worn a Sharks hat but how many Sharks people were wearing A’s hats?
I don’t think there is trouble between the Sharks and A’s. More likely, the Sharks want to leverage the city’s desire for a baseball team to get a little something extra for themselves. My guess is something related to parking, perhaps have the city help pay for a garage?
the A’s are just wasting time man.
Kind of ridiculous that the Giants’ astroturf group is allowed to participate. It is going to oppose anything and everything having to do with the ballpark. I’d love to see the city of San Jose sue the Giants for billions if the A’s don’t come to San Jose.
That’s the spirit Jesse! I think LS hit the nail on the head with the parking garage theory; I was thinking the same thing when I read the article this morning in the Merc. The Sharks and A’s are partners for crying out loud!
As for these appeals: we had an EIR study traffic for a ballpark seating 45,000 and now a supplemental for 36,000. If the ballpark comes in at 32K, the SEIR has gone above and beyond at measuring game-day traffic.
Won’t those appealing have to PROVE that the SEIR doesn’t “adequately analyze or disclose potential impacts from traffic and parking”?
As for the “Stand For San Francisco” group; how can they even look themselves in the mirror each and every day? Just plain pathetic!
Being a season tix holder of the Sharks I was less than happy that they appeared, based upon media portrayal, to be partnering with the gints on appealing the EIR. I sent an email to the Sharks management regarding this and indicating I was seriously considering not renewing season tix and received an immediate response that indicated they have a close working relationship with the A’s and the city of San Jose and are working together to make the A’s ballpark a reality. The implication was that media accounts are inaccurate. There was an offer extended to me to call and discuss 1:1–impressive from a responsiveness perspective and I took the information on face value as represented that the A’s, Sharks and city of San Jose are all working closely together to make this a reality-
@ A’sobserver – Things may well be worked out, but not officially. Remember that the A’s don’t actually have a seat at the table here. The applicant for the EIR is not the A’s, it’s the City of San Jose. The Sharks are just being consistent in their stance regarding the stadium.
Thanks for getting that feedback, GoA’s. Let’s be clear that the EIR is very narrow in scope. Virtually all of the objections are about traffic and parking management, which are perfectly legitimate arguments. Even Stand for San Jose isn’t going much beyond that. To be for or against the EIR doesn’t necessarily mean you’re for or against a ballpark in general. In the Sharks case, they aren’t against a ballpark at all, they are simply concerned about diminished parking availability and traffic during simultaneous event scenarios. They are saying that the city isn’t doing enough to address it.
Going further, there’s an implication that if parking were built at the current HP Pavilion main lot, that the Sharks may put up some of the cost. If I were the Sharks, I’d probably object to that too.
Way to go GoA’s!
I think what the Sharks are really complaining about is the parking. How big and how tall will the garage be next to HP Pavilion? What will be the parking plan while they build the parking garage?
Ultimately that parking garage will be used for BART, Caltrain, High Speed Rail, HP Pavilion, and the A’s stadium.
Will there be long term parking at the garage? Where will the rental cars be for the High Speed Rail? Will there be shuttles for long term parking and rental cars? If the garage becomes supersized to handle all of the demands, how many exits will there be for the garage and what streets? As an example, all the people at Shoreline funnel into 2 streets and it takes forever to leave after a concert. If the garage is very big, they will need to exit onto at least 3 streets to speed up people leaving the events.
Obviously they can make a garage that takes up the entire parking lot of the HP Pavilion and make it as high as possible to serve all the possible demands. The question will be how will they disperse the cars from the garage afterwards.
Mark,
Can’t remember what architectural website I saw it at, but I have seen renderings of the proposed parking garage near HP Pavilion. It showed a 9 level garage that had architectural features similar to HP; i.e. pyramid-like corners and green facade (looked like glass). When I find it I’ll post a link.
And then there were two…
http://sanjose.bizjournals.com/sanjose/stories/2010/05/31/daily19.html