In the latest effort to protect agriculture and open space in Coyote Valley, the largely undeveloped territory on San Jose’s southern outskirts that was previously slated for huge technology campuses, a non-profit environmental group has purchased a 71-acre farm to keep it rural for future generations.
The Palo Alto-based Peninsula Open Space Trust paid $5.3 million to the O’Connell family, which had owned the property since the 1950s. The farm grows bell peppers, maize, and lettuce, as well as pumpkins for the nearby Spina Farms Pumpkin Patch, which is a favorite Halloween destination for South Bay families.
The land, located on Santa Teresa Boulevard just south of Bailey Avenue and west of Highway 101, was considered a potential location for a battery storage factory and other development. Instead, it will be handed to the Santa Clara Valley Open Space Authority and leased to its current tenant, B&T Farms.
We are thrilled to preserve productive farmland that has been family owned for decades, maintaining a small piece of the Valley of Heart’s Delight in perpetuity,” said Gordon Clark, president of the Peninsula Open Space Trust, or POST.
Over the last decade, POST and governmental agencies, including the city of San Jose, have spent more than $120 million to purchase thousands of acres in and around Coyote Valley, preserving it as a critical wildlife corridor, farming region, and natural buffer between San Jose and Morgan Hill. In the 1980s, the location was considered a prospective global headquarters for Apple, and in the 1990s, Cisco made a similar proposal. Both plans were dropped because to strong resistance from environmentalists and farmers.
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