MILPITAS – Plans so as to add tons of of recent reasonably priced housing projects to a south Milpitas neighborhood are facing resistance from locals who say such developments would disrupt their community.

More than 550 community members living near Landess Avenue – west of Interstate 680 – have signed a petition and urged the City Council to reject plans to rezone the avenue as a mixed-use district. The proposed designation – NCMU – would allow for the development of business, retail and reasonably priced housing units alongside existing businesses.

The move, in response to the town, is meant to offer a possibility to redevelop older industrial properties and implement state and city-led plans to construct hundreds of recent apartments in Milpitas by 2031. But Landess petitioners claim the town has not adequately analyzed the impact of the NCMU change and are concerned that a possible influx of recent residents will impact local resources.

The rush for housing coincides with Milpitas, like dozens of other Bay Area cities, moving forward with the Housing Element – a housing plan submitted to the state every eight years that lays out how cities will create a certain variety of apartments at different price points. Milpitas is required to construct 6,713 latest housing units by 2031.

To meet housing needs, the Bay Area, which incorporates nine counties, is anticipated to construct greater than 441,000 latest homes by 2031, a 15 percent increase within the region's total housing stock. Counties must also provide about 40 percent of that housing for low- and really low-income families.

Landess Avenue is just not the one area in the town slated for NCMU zoning. there are three other throughout North and Central Milpitas. The NCMU areas were identified by the town in 2021 and chosen based on aspects comparable to available land area. The council will consider whether to approve the zoning at its August meeting.

Landess is currently lined with quite a few restaurants, a small plaza with several stores and empty parking lots. The surrounding neighborhood consists primarily of single-family homes and schools. The applicants say it’s unclear how the town will handle the potential congestion of colleges, hospitals and roads. Local roads are already overloaded with traffic from ongoing construction projects across the Great Mall area – which is just a number of miles from Landess.

NCMU's zoning plans allow a maximum height of 75 feet, or six stories, raising privacy and safety concerns amongst some residents.

“I am currently next to the NCMU premises,” said petition organizer Manali Desai. “It will be a six-story building next to my home and community. I don't know what will happen to our privacy and safety, that is my biggest concern.”

In an announcement, City Manager Ned Thomas said staff was aware of the petition and recently held public meetings to reply questions and “address inaccurate or misleading statements of information in the petition,” comparable to referring to the NCMU as a project fairly than a zoning category.

According to the town, properties inside city limits are assigned a selected zoning category, which comes with its own standards and guidelines for certain permitted developments.

All future development projects within the NCMU zone must undergo a “comprehensive public review process that provides residents and business owners with multiple opportunities to voice their opinions,” Thomas said. The city's review and approval processes also include a “full analysis of potential impacts on traffic, parking, open space, noise, aesthetics, housing and schools.”

New homes in the world mean more customers, but construction nearby could impact people's shopping experience, he said.

“We understand these requirements,” he said recently in the shop, “but they will have a massive impact on us.”

In the spring, honey bees may be found almost all over the place within the South Bay, as can beekeeper Jack Carter.

Armed with a honeycomb mobile phone and a garage stuffed with beekeeping equipment, the Cupertino resident is all the time ready to reply to calls from locals to remove swarms or monitor the health of their backyard hives.

The 73-year-old, who has been doing the job as a hobby for greater than a decade, likes to make use of these opportunities to get people excited concerning the topic of bees and to support beehive growth.

“Beekeepers are like drug dealers,” Carter said. “We want to get everyone hooked.”

California has the biggest beekeeping industry of any state, boasting nearly 500,000 colonies operated by 400 industrial and semi-commercial beekeepers, and one other 2,000 hobbyist beekeepers have a number of hives. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, honey bees are a vital a part of U.S. agriculture, pollinating $15 billion price of crops every year, including greater than 130 fruits, nuts and vegetables.

Colonies have been going through hard times recently. Parasites, pesticides and extreme weather conditions have led to this All contributed to the decline within the bee population. U.S. beekeepers lost an estimated 48% of their honeybee colonies in 2022-23, the second highest death rate on record, after losing 51% in 2020-2021. in keeping with a national study on bee decline.

As a member of the Santa Clara Valley Beekeepers Guild, a county-based organization that promotes local beekeeping and advocates for bee welfare, Carter provides free swarm rescue services in Cupertino, Los Altos, Los Altos Hills, Saratoga, Sunnyvale and Western San Jose. He tells those that stop by his homemade honey stand, Third Acre Farm, concerning the bees and preaches to the passersby who crowd around him as he brings a swarm right into a hive, fascinated by the bees' behavior.

“Once you have the queen in the box, the bees start going in like little soldiers in a column,” he said. “And everyone thinks you’re God.”

After catching a swarm, he keeps the bees within the box and delivers it to anyone who wants a hive of their backyard. He owns seven in his home but monitors 21 others in ten different homes. He personally visits each hive and takes careful notes about which of them have stable honey production and healthy bee behavior and which of them he needs to alter.

To finance his hobby, Carter collects honey from beehives and sells it in jars outside his home on Vai Avenue west of Highway 85. Unlike most stands, Third Acre is a self-service shop where locals drop money within the box , before taking an amber. coloured glass. A 3-ounce jar costs about $6 and a pound costs $20. At the underside of every hive there’s a sticker indicating which hive produced the honey.

“It puts a smile on my neighbors’ faces,” he said. “People enjoy the fact that there is a little self-service honey stand that is very local and very raw.”

Taking care of the hives, especially within the spring when activity is at its peak, may be tiring, and a decade of physical labor is catching up with Carter. Nevertheless, he does it for the bees and to make people completely satisfied.

“I’m getting to the point where I’m ready to give up,” he said. “Then someone says, 'Jack, I really appreciate what you're doing for bees and pollination.'”

“I’m in awe of it because it’s a lot of work,” the Cupertino resident said. “You have to make sure that the hives are clean and that there are no diseases in the bee population. He comes over to make sure they’re making enough honey.”

Carter recently gave Eilts and her husband 1 / 4 of his honey. The couple works at it, one teaspoon of goodness at a time.

“It's so much better than what you buy at the store, which is some fancy colored corn syrup,” she said. “You can’t understand how good honey is unless you get it from a beekeeper.”