To my council colleagues, city staff, and the public I am very excited to be a part of the many changes coming to Gilroy this year. Legislating policy in house often doesn't require budget allocations, and many of the best practices are already open sourced. We have many policies and practices that will continue to be updated to 2025 standards. The entire community was a part of the Gilroy General Plan 2040 process in late 2020. It was approved by the General Plan Advisory Committee, Planning Commission, and City Council, along with a full Environmental Impact Report (EIR). We planned for growth and have detailed plans to address everything inside the General Plan 2040. The General Plan 2040 represents the City of Gilroy’s view of its future, expresses the community’s vision, local control, and guiding principles for development. The Zoning Code Ordinance is the script of how those visions will unfold. Our 2026-2027 Legislative Work Plan and City Council goals have been formed over several meetings and will be formalized in June when we adopt the two-year budget. Along with several new housing laws that make it quicker and easier to build all types of housing, I will be focusing on our Zoning Ordinance (Bike Parking, Noise Impacting Residentially Zoned Properties), Tobacco Prevention, Inclusionary Housing Ordinance, Accessory Dwelling Units, Opportunity Sites/Programs in our Housing Element 2023-2031, Parking Management/Enforcement, Transportation Demand Management/Vehicle Miles Traveled Policy/Climate Action Plan, Safe Storage of Firearms, Community Plan to End Homelessness, Transit Priority Policy, Plan for the Multi-Generational Center and Civic Center Master Plan, and State Legislative Bills. I am in full support of laying the groundwork for a Civic Center Master Plan and building a civic center park and multi-generational community center that is for all ages. The focus on a free safe place for our youth to have after school and on the weekends is a top priority for me. The City of Gilroy and Gilroy Unified School District have many facilities that can be used by the community for free, and that’s why I have convened a Joint Use Agreement Working Group. We have the opportunity to develop programming and provide spaces for the public with no barriers now. Gilroy has a once in a generation opportunity to shape what they want to experience in their Civic Center. Gilroy deserves this opportunity to transform the Civic Center outdoor space, build a state of the art Community Center for all ages, build a state of the art City Hall, and we need input from all ages. Gilroy is in need of a central location for youth services; gathering spaces for large groups or events; and a year-round space to offer recreation and community events. We need a City Hall where our city staff can thrive in their workspace and a place where our elected officials and city commissions can host their meetings and public events in a state of the art Council Chambers. Our residents and customers deserve a state of the art experience when they come into City Hall for permits, plans, pay a bill, or interact with staff and elected officials. I encourage residents to think big in your input for future Civic Center recreation and a Civic Center Park and outdoor spaces. In 2025, we have many public and private partnership opportunities coming before the council. I’m very confident that staff will continue to find grant funding opportunities that directly benefit all of our residents. I’d like to find some common ground when it comes to housing for all, climate action, planning our multi-generational community center/civic center, updating master plans, further streamlining of the permit process, and most important our human capital or our employees. Many of these issues we can’t solve alone, and we need to leverage partnerships that currently exist and be flexible when it comes to new partnerships. Thank you to our County partners at Public Health who are wrapping up their successful $2.5 million Caltrans ATP grant in East Gilroy called Gilroy Moves which focused around physical activity and promoting public facilities. The consequences of failing to effectively and aggressively confront our housing crisis is hurting thousands of our residents, robbing future generations of the chance to call Gilroy home, stifling economic opportunities for workers and businesses, worsening poverty and homelessness, and undermining our environmental and climate objectives. Thankfully millions of dollars in funding have continued to pour into Gilroy to help our most vulnerable address their rent burden. We continue to use our local control in streamlining the development process, implement our General Plan 2040, and streamline a process making it predictable to those that want to develop and invest in Gilroy. I am proud of the future housing plan that Gilroy City Council, Planning Commission, Staff, and the Public have approved. We commit to advancing the 40 opportunity sites for multi-family homes, downtown expansion district and first street mixed-use corridor flexibility program, 429 corner lots for the middle income housing program, housing for farmworkers program, and our inclusionary housing ordinance. Through incentives, funding, local control, and programs we can offer with other partners, this will further a Gilroy that’s livable for all. Newly-Launched Pre-Approved ADU Plans: To streamline the building process, the City of Gilroy offers standardized ADU construction plans that have been pre-approved, facilitating a faster and more cost-effective permit process. These plans come in various sizes and architectural finishes. If the site-specific plan and required documents are accurate and complete, permits may be issued within 15 working days. The City of Gilroy is participating in a multi-city initiative to explore updates and/or enact new affordable housing policies to be applied to new development projects. These policy studies include some combination of residential affordable housing impact fees, inclusionary requirements and in-lieu fees, and commercial linkage fees. We reached the end of the fourth year of my Student Internship Program, and I am incredibly proud of what they have accomplished. The work they do is essential to my platform, and I could not do it without them. From the OP-Ed’s they write to defend the defenseless, hold the powerful accountable, and attend meetings on behalf of my office. They are all maturing to make this community a better place. Young people are essential to our civic discourse, and I am proud to have my students lead the charge. My work making the City Council accountable continues with a publicly available voting record, so that we can all see how your council member voted on issues that matter to you. You can find this on my website located under the legislative section. In addition, you can try and change the law as you see fit. For the first time in Gilroy history my office created a program called “Their Ought to Be a Law”, where residents have the opportunity to get involved with the legislative process. The Gilroy City Council should not be cloaked in an aura of secrecy, it should be a matter of public participation. Residents don’t feel a sense of community and belonging if they perceive members of the City Council as an exclusive club. We commit to offering transparent paths to leadership positions, along with inviting and seeking different perspectives. The progress and accomplishments of my office are available on my website under the about section and I will continue to engage with you in English/Spanish. My office sponsored, tabled, hosted a booth, and attended over 100 community events in 2024. Provided free resources, bike lights, bike helmets, and listened to constituents, at events including Chalk Fest, La Ofrenda Festival, Registrar of Voters High School Education Events, Free Bike Repair and Bike Days, Nueva Vida Community Posadas, and School Family Resource Fairs. There were numerous press releases and Op-Eds issued and published to keep the public in the loop. There was endless support and testimonies on many important state legislative bills that decreased the cost and time of much needed affordable housing (SB423, AB821, AB1469). Gilroy City Council committee assignments have a regional participation, and my position as Director for Silicon Valley Clean Energy allowed me to be a part of developing programs that will benefit all in Gilroy. Safe communities are climate resilient communities. Since 2017, Silicon Valley Clean Energy, or SV Clean Energy, has served our residents and businesses with clean energy while saving them money. In total, more than 93% of Gilroy residents and businesses served by SV Clean Energy have collectively saved more than $7.3 million on their electricity bills over the past five years. And this number will continue to grow as SV Clean Energy is a not-for-profit public agency that reinvests net revenues to the community through competitive rates, unique offers and services, rebates, community grants and scholarships. The Board of Directors is made up of electeds from each community, and I have been our appointed Gilroy representative since 2021. SV Clean Energy launched $12 million dollars of program funding for our Multi-Family Direct Install Program and built into the program are tenant protections referred to as "renovictions". Gilroy has the largest number of 100% deed restricted low-income units at 1,770 in SV Clean Energy’s affordable housing stock. There are many smaller projects 5+ units that could benefit by converting their old gas wall heaters for a heat pump unit that can provide air conditioning in extreme heat. I look forward to continuing this work with SV Clean Energy, consultants, and local community based organizations in completing their project in Gilroy. I have been serving on the Valley Transportation Authority Policy Advisory Committee since 2023. I have brought funding or collaboration opportunities back to Gilroy through their Transit-Oriented Communities Program and Transit Signal Priority. This new program seeks to maximize mixed-use and mixed-income equitable Transit-Oriented Development projects on both public and private sites around VTA transit stations and high capacity transit corridors. Local jurisdictions have the power to improve travel speed, reliability, and overall appeal of public transit by adopting transit signal priority policies that prioritize transit at intersections along VTA’s Frequent Network routes or Gilroy's VTA Frequent 68 route along the Monterey corridor. The FTA and VTA funded a combined $1.125 million dollars that will fuel a community-centered Station Area Plan, focused on planning out the downtown area where the Gilroy Transit Center is located. The plan will prioritize multi-modal transportation, pedestrian and bicycle access, and mixed-use development. The $750,000 Transit-Oriented Communities Grant program is focused on partnerships to support local public agencies and other stakeholders involved in the creation of Transit-Oriented Communities. The grant provided a key funding opportunity to support local public agencies, property owners, community organizations, and other diverse Transit-Oriented Communities stakeholders working to further Transit-Oriented Communities along high-capacity transit corridors and stations in Santa Clara County. I’m happy to announce that our very own Carry the Vision was funded for Community Resiliency, strengthening small business resiliency or increasing the ability to advance preservation or production of affordable housing and the Gilroy Arts Alliance was funded for Placemaking, Arts, and Activation Placemaking to create accessible and welcoming public spaces that reflect and enhance vibrancy of the local community’s history, culture, and identity. VTA has an active Transit-Oriented Development (TOD) program, which partners with developers to build TOD projects on VTA-owned properties at transit stations. These TOD sites serve as gateways to the VTA transit system, offering significant potential to attract new transit riders. To ensure the future developments preserve and enhance station access from the surrounding community, VTA conducts access studies for station sites identified in the TOD pipeline. Gilroy Station Access Study is nearing completion. Gilroy Transit Center is the southern stop for Caltrain service and serves as a key hub for multiple transit options, including VTA bus routes, San Benito County Express, Monterey- Salinas Transit (MST), Greyhound, and commuter shuttles. It is also planned to become a future California High Speed Rail (CHSRA) station. The VTA-owned 7.8-acre site on the west side of the tracks is identified for future mixed-used, mixed-income TOD, will be a critical component of transforming the future station site along with High-Speed Rail, and contribute to Gilroy’s Regional Housing Needs Allocation (or RHNA) of 1,773 units by 2031. Proposed access recommendations include bicycle and pedestrian safety improvements such as high visibility crosswalks, pedestrian refuge islands, curb extensions, and upgraded bicycle facilities on key streets such as 7th Street, Eigleberry Street, and Chestnut Street. Year-to-date my office has worked with our state and federal legislators to secure $5.2 million for project funding that directly benefits our residents from the westside, eastside, and a senior housing project on the southside. We attended many more regional and local meetings representing an elected office from Gilroy, and in my absence, my student interns would take my place in these meetings. I attended every opportunity I got in order to gain professional development and training through both webinars, and in-person training. The Arts are alive in Gilroy. Today we have a monthly Arts Roundtable, Third Friday Art Walk, Chalk Fest, La Ofrenda Festival, and doors continue to open. The City of Gilroy celebrates the role that the arts and creativity play in helping us navigate a pandemic, amplify the need for racial equity, and highlight the power of the arts to change our lives for the better. The Gilroy Arts & Culture Commission and SV Creates work in partnership to support the arts and creativity in Gilroy as an essential part of our thriving community. SV Creates partners locally with the Gilroy Arts & Culture Commission and Gilroy Arts Roundtable to include the City of Gilroy with a network of leaders who care about the resilience of our arts ecosystem and its impact to our community. They are conveners, promoters, incubators, and funders of the arts with a mission to elevate Silicon Valley’s creative culture. The City of Gilroy recognizes that the arts and creativity support student success and life-long learning, provide key job skills, and bring joy to our community while strengthening our connections; and values partnering with SV Creates and State-level organizations to promote unified support for the arts. The annual Downtown Gilroy La Ofrenda Festival brings together a cross section of sponsorships and partnerships from government, education, health, private sector, arts, transportation, culture, non-profits, labor workforce and more. I would like to personally invite you to join us in Downtown Gilroy on November 1, and travel to the festival by bike, bus, walk, or drive. My dreams for a bike/ped/walk/transit oriented festival have come true with the creation of Cycle, Health, and Transit Plaza. Thank you to all the volunteers, sponsors, and organizations that made it come true. On behalf of my office, my student interns, and my family, I am excited for the challenges that 2025 has to offer. There are still many things to be addressed, and I am taking them head on. Through the power of public participation, I am confident that 2025 can be one of the best years that Gilroy has ever had.
Zach Hilton Gilroy City Council Member