By Robert Haugh

Last week, the victor got the spoils. 

In other words, Santa Clara got $5 million recently from San Jose because the Mission City beat the Garden City in a 2018 lawsuit.

Last year, Santa Clara sued San Jose over the Santana West development and won. This was after San Jose sued Santa Clara over the City Place development. Santa Clara won that lawsuit, too.

San Jose will pay another $1.2 million soon for traffic and transportation improvements in Santa Clara. That’s a total of $6.2 million. That’s not too bad for the Mission City.

We wrote about the two legal wins last November. It’s a good thing that the majority of the council didn’t listen to then-Councilwoman Patty Mahan and disgraced former Councilman Dominic Caserta. They wanted to concede to San Jose. 

This issue was covered in the local media and called the “Border War.”

Here’s more info directly from Santa Clara’s press release:

Highlights of the Santana West settlement agreement include:

·     Santa Clara agreed to dismiss its challenge of the environmental impact report for San Jose’s Santana West project. The settlement requires investment of traffic improvements in San Jose totaling approximately $2.5 million before the issuance of occupancy for the first 300,000 square feet of rentable space;

·     $1.2 million for Santa Clara traffic improvements at the time of a grading permit for the first 300,000 square feet of rentable space;

·     $5 million payment to Santa Clara upon issuance of a grading or building permit for the site, or by July 1, 2022, that will be used for transportation and affordable housing in Santa Clara;

·     Payment of a portion of Santa Clara’s attorney’s fees estimated at $145,000; and,

·     Guarantee that any traffic impact funds that San Jose would waive for this, or other developments, that affect traffic in Santa Clara will be replaced with alternative funding by San Jose.

·     The two cities agree to work together to address other issues such as traffic in Stevens Creek corridor.