As the West Valley prepares for a new community center in Los Gatos and a proposed Costco development in West San Jose, local leaders are tapping a new resource to help: urban planning students from San Jose State University.
For the controversial proposed Costco near Saratoga and the multi-generational community center that’s in the works in Los Gatos, students from the university’s urban planning master’s program have been working with local officials and community groups to conduct research on the projects and put the skills they learned in the classroom to use in real-life scenarios. Rick Kos, a faculty member with the urban and regional planning department, said the effort is part of the program’s goal of preparing students with experience, so they’re ready to “make positive change right from the get-go” after graduation.
“We want our students to go out there and really promote sound urban planning with a real equity focus, and with marketable skills like GIS and community engagement and report writing–all the stuff that planners, we hope, are good at,” Kos said.
Saratoga Vice Mayor Belal Aftab said he worked with the SJSU students earlier this year as part of conversations about the proposed Costco near the Saratoga border. The Saratoga City Council voted in February to respond to the environmental impact report for the project, expressing concern about its assessment of the impact the project will have on the area.
Aftab said San Jose Vice Mayor Rosemary Kamei contacted SJSU about bringing in urban planning students to help conduct research on the proposed Costco’s potential impact. The students have also been conducting surveys on the project, and hosted a meeting for local leaders from cities like Saratoga that will be affected by the development to solicit feedback and concerns.
Aftab said he believes city governments should regularly tap into “the latest thinking in academia. What are some of the lessons we can learn from other parts of the world, other parts of the state and Bay Area? And what better way than graduate students that study this all day, every day.”
Kos said the students got involved through his required capstone course, which encourages students to get out of the classroom and into local communities.
“I think the students know going into my classes that the work they’re going to do is valuable and will be actually considered by elected officials and professionals. That really, really helps to motivate them to do the best quality work,” Kos said.
The SJSU students have also been involved in recent efforts spearheaded by the Los Gatos Thrives Foundation to envision what a new multigenerational community center in town could look like.
For a community meeting the foundation held in June to solicit ideas, SJSU interns had helped put together a variety of fact sheets on other community centers in the Bay Area for attendees to use in their discussions.
Tom Picraux, president of the foundation, said the interns’ work has helped supplement the community feedback his group has solicited with context about the development of community centers across the country.
Though Picraux said the foundation doesn’t have the funds to pay the interns at the moment, he added that the group hopes the interns are able to stay involved throughout the development process of the community center, and that the foundation will eventually find the funds to compensate them.
“We’ve been absolutely delighted with their participation,” Picraux said. “They’re bright, they’re very well spoken, they write and organize things very well and are spot on in their thinking, so it’s been mutually supportive in both directions.”
