History of San Jose/Santa Clara County thread...

[mstnghu2]

Originally Posted by Wintermomma

I would love to know a little about how the city boundaries were drawn up for this area, especially and particularly San Jose as it relates to the way it sticks out in between various places in a very odd shape, b/c they make no sense to me whatsoever but I would imagine at some point people had a good reason for it. Does anyone know anything about that?

San Jose leaders have annexed all sorts of land through the years and the city limits basically just kept expanding in different directions like a puddle. Even recently, San Jose has still continued to annex parcels of unincorporated Santa Clara County land. Many cities/towns surrounding SJ didn't want to be annexed so they incorporated into their own cities. Milpitas is one of them. San Jose tried to annex Milpitas in the 50's and a group of people calling themselves the Milpitas Minutemen formed to prevent the annexation. Milpitas then incorporated into its own city.

There are still quite a few locations that are "in" San Jose but are actually not technically within city jurisdiction. The Burbank area is a good example, along with the East Foothills. There are many blocks within those areas that still fall under county jurisdiction, but have SJ mailing addresses.

If you type in San Jose, CA under Google Maps you can really see how oddly shaped the city boundaries are.
Driving along hwy. 85 is a good example of the weird shape. You drive from Cupertino into a little pocket of San Jose and then within a couple minutes you're in Los Gatos.

[cardinal2007]

Originally Posted by mstnghu2

San Jose leaders have annexed all sorts of land through the years and the city limits basically just kept expanding in different directions like a puddle. Even recently, San Jose has still continued to annex parcels of unincorporated Santa Clara County land. Many cities/towns surrounding SJ didn't want to be annexed so they incorporated into their own cities. Milpitas is one of them. San Jose tried to annex Milpitas in the 50's and a group of people calling themselves the Milpitas Minutemen formed to prevent the annexation. Milpitas then incorporated into its own city.

There are still quite a few locations that are "in" San Jose but are actually not technically within city jurisdiction. The Burbank area is a good example, along with the East Foothills. There are many blocks within those areas that still fall under county jurisdiction, but have SJ mailing addresses.

If you type in San Jose, CA under Google Maps you can really see how oddly shaped the city boundaries are.
Driving along hwy. 85 is a good example of the weird shape. You drive from Cupertino into a little pocket of San Jose and then within a couple minutes you're in Los Gatos.

The city doesn't want to annex any residential land, but the rumor is that they lost a lawsuit, and that if they annex any commercial land, they have to annex the nearby residential land. Due to prop 13 residential property doesn't pay enough to cover services provided by the city, especially single family homes, so the city is trying to avoid annexing any residential land. On the other hand retail shops create sales tax revenue above the low property taxes for them.

[pecanku]

Originally Posted by Wintermomma

I would love to know a little about how the city boundaries were drawn up for this area, especially and particularly San Jose as it relates to the way it sticks out in between various places in a very odd shape, b/c they make no sense to me whatsoever but I would imagine at some point people had a good reason for it. Does anyone know anything about that?

Always like that sign driving north on U.S. 101 after Morgan Hill marking San Jose's city limit, population almost a million (now more than a million), and the surrounding area is, well, farmland!

[Ultrarunner]

Originally Posted by cardinal2007

The city doesn't want to annex any residential land, but the rumor is that they lost a lawsuit, and that if they annex any commercial land, they have to annex the nearby residential land. Due to prop 13 residential property doesn't pay enough to cover services provided by the city, especially single family homes, so the city is trying to avoid annexing any residential land. On the other hand retail shops create sales tax revenue above the low property taxes for them.

Which kind of flies in the face of all those pushing to split the tax roll so business would no longer have the protections of Prop 13.

Chevron is always a target as is Disney... the economic impact is far greater than the millions they pay in property tax...