Vision North San Jose On Shaky Ground

The Mercury News is reporting that a new study has revealed the exact location of the Silver Creek Faultline, and it seems to be running directly through North San Jose. This is interesting because North San Jose is the area of the city where the city wants to see most get developed over the next few decades. They’ve set forth a “Vision North San Jose and has formulated a policy and design guidelines, and from what it appears, the fault line seems to be running through a large part of some of the higher density areas of the project area. According to the article:

Seismic profiles of the earth underneath three streets near downtown San Jose — Empire Street, Mission Street and Gish Road — provide conclusive evidence of a shallow fault, according to a study by geophysicist Rufus Catchings of the U.S. Geological Survey in Menlo Park.

“Because the fault zone extends through downtown San Jose, and likely much of the East Bay, the fault may pose a significantly high seismic hazard to the region,” Catchings said.

Structural engineer Chris D. Poland of the San Francisco-based Degenkolb Engineers, which specializes in earthquake hazard work, said “the Silver Creek Fault sounds like one that we need to know about ASAP, although I’m not sure it will increase the overall intensity of expected shaking in the area, since there are so many faults that we consider now.

“Its location is very important” because it could influence the future of construction near the fault line, Poland said.

“Vision North San Jose” is the redevelopment policy this city has adopted to bring an additional 16 million+ square feet of industrial/commercial development to the “core industrial area”, as well as 32,000 new transit-oriented housing units to an outer TOD residential area.

I’ve overlayed the faultline over three maps. One is the overall North San Jose Redevelopment project area in general. This map shows that the fault line runs literally right through the project area. The second map I’ve overlayed the fault line over is a more detailed map outlining the various “core” and TOD residential areas within the Project area. The “core” area is where the city has plans to provide high density commercial construction (1+ FAR), along the VTA light rail line. The fault line runs through a large swathe of the core industrial area. The third map shows the location of the fault line, as well as the VTA Light Rail stations, and the parcels and land use for the properties within and beyond 2000 feet of the light rail line (where density allowances will be higher).

What does this all mean? It’s probably too early to tell and I’m no expert, but if the fault runs right through the development area, structural engineering and construction efforts will likely need to be more intense and expensive, FAR’s might need to be brought down on some sites, and the cost of insurance will likely be higher as well.

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Comments

Gary April 13, 2009

wow, excellent information. one thing I noticed is that the fault continues NW into Santa Clara, where a lot of data centers are being built because of cheap energy.

I’m also no expert, but I think the risk of a major disruption to a data center is not worth the cost savings of cheap energy.

I wonder if this will be taken into consideration by all the companies and developers who are continuing to build data centers in Santa Clara.

squarefeet April 13, 2009

Thanks for the comment and a valid point.

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