“Cupetino city officials Thursday night held a public meeting to start the Environmental Reveiw process for a new home for Apple,” KTVU reports.
“Apple’s plans call for a 3.1 million square foot building – four stories high and round,” KTVU reports. “People broke up into smaller groups Thursday night to talk about issues that should be included in the Environmental Impact Report. Cupertino officials will incorporate those ideas into a draft Environmental Impact Report that will then undergo further public review.”
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“‘Is it a done deal? It’s definitely not a done deal,’ said Cupertino Mayor Gilber Wong. ‘We have to go through a public process,'” KTVU reports. “That could take a year, and would culminate with a City Council vote on the EIR.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Regardless of what Gilbert is saying this minute or next, there is no deal more done.
(Although, if any state could eff something like this up, it would have to be California.)
Related articles:
Cupertino City Council to examine environmental impact of Apple’s new Mothership campus – September 7, 2011
City of Cupertino posts further details on Apple mothership campus – August 13, 2011
Cupertino area residents greet Apple’s proposed mothership campus with enthusiasm – June 20, 2011
Apple’s new ‘Mothership’ campus: Full details and gallery – June 16, 2011
Cupertino mayor: ‘There is no chance we are saying no’ to Apple Mothership (with video) – June 9, 2011
Steve Jobs presents giant 12,000 employee ‘spaceship’ campus to Cupertino City Council (with video) – June 8, 2011
best MDN take in a long time
What, still waiting for the free wifi?
Let’s see, a local company wants to expand in a down economy, pay more in property taxes, reenforce its local presence, solidify its national and international identity in its chosen municipality, voluntarily committed to energy efficiency, environmentally sound construction, “green” methods on all fronts, be “neighbor”-friendly; and they want to pretend that the process is more important? Perhaps they would rather approve or disapprove of a 15- story, traditional square building. I understand that they don’t want to be seen as simply rubber-stamping whatever Apple wants, and sometimes things are just too good to be true; but sometimes there is such a thing as being a bit too obtuse just for its sake. Sheesh.
Process is more important. You state a lot of things that are surrounded by “wants” and “promises”. Let the process play out so that the campus is built and the promises are kept.
The process is there to get the citizens’/city’s desired outcome. When we start from a position that’s so far beyond what everyone is expecting, it’s a shame the process is sitting there as a one-year roadblock. Couldn’t that be a great incentive for going above and beyond? Instant approval.
If you want “instant approval” then you must want to live in a dictatorship. I, for one, like living in a Democracy.
quick approval…. plenty of states would suck this status symbol up and give loads of gifts in. Go ahead and sit a year on this, watch it walk away. That is the process. That is democracy. Thumb up your butt, and they would walk.
If the town wants this project, they should get off their butt and settle this in 30 days, not 365.
Do you even live NEAR a city? Do you understand anything at all about the Bay Area?
Where do you live? The USA is NOT a democracy.
I’d say Tim Cook could put his stamp on Apple real quick by moving it to a neighboring city that would gladly welcome it. If they want to try out some southern hospitality… They’re welcome here, in the foothills of the Smoky Mountains.
Wong is wrong
He has to say it’s NOT a done deal, otherwise, people would complain; also, why pay for all these reports and studies, if they’re just going to rubber-stamp their approval.
Exactly. The deal isn’t *officially* done. Apple still has to jump through the hoops in the process. But the Cupertino city council should (will) do everything to expedite the process and help deal with any obstacles. You can bet that Cupertino desperately wants to keep Apple anchored in place. I have no doubt that dozens of other communities would offer tens of millions in incentives if Apple were willing to move or open up a major branch facility.
“We have to go through a public process. That could take a year, and would culminate with a City Council vote on the EIR.”
A year?? I thought that only happened in third world countries, I mean [always] developing economies. A big change of public process or a more effective city mayor is clearly necessary.
And would culminate with a vote!??? What are you guys thinking??
A big change of public process or a more effective city mayor is clearly necessary.
I don’t know any third world country that has a written process. #1 People don’t ask their government for permission they just do it and cheat their way out of paying any taxes. #2 or they just bribe the people in charge.
Regardless the process is less than a year. Usually, days if a bribe is involved.
OK, I see your point…
Because the U.S. is a first world country (developing economy whatsoever) we must have a written process, we must follow it, and it should take a year (even if a bribe is involved) to approve something like Apple’s mothership campus.
Thanks!
The U. S. hasn’t been a first world country for a couple of years now.
Translation: Following the rule of law is for suckers. We should ditch our laws for the corruption endemic in China and Mexico.
Brilliant!
No. Here’s what sucks…. In case you didn’t read it.
Going through a public process that could take a year, and would culminate with a City Council vote.
And only for a report on environmental impact??
Say it took 30 or even 60 working days to do it, OK but, 1 year??
Yes, that law/rule has to go.
Brazil has both bureaucracy AND tax corruption. Imagine that!
There’s only one world. Talking about people living in another world sounds delusional.
You are right. It may be true.
Hope they don’t make the Wong decision.
Apple’s building schedule shows they always expected it to take until the end of 2012 to get all the approvals needed, with groundbreaking in 2013. No surprises here. Still frustrating, though.
As a 57 year native resident of California, I’ve watched us go from being the 6th greatest economic entity in the WORLD to a stumbling, crippled, anti-business piece of shit state, that can’t teach it’s children, can’t retain business, can’t generate revenue, can’t pay its debts. This state is pathetic and, sorry folks, it’s been in the hands of liberal Democrats for this slow painful death spiral. I don’t say this to denigrate Dems — really — but there is no denying the results of California’s liberal governance. Democrats and their policies have turned the Golden State into a pathetic loser.
There’s still a little life in the old gal: http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune500/2011/states/CA.html
Hear, hear. Granted, Arnold didn’t do a terrible lot to turn things around.
No, he didn’t. The Governor really has little power in this State except to veto some legislation here and there. The Assembly is currently about 2:1 Dems over Repubs, and has been like that for a very long time. We are Billions in debt, yet the Assembly keeps coming up with methods to spend more, while at the same time eroding the revenue stream by putting up more and more barriers to doing business here. There seems to be a logic disconnect between raising money and spending money. I don’t get the lack of reality check in Sacramento.
Yeah, I feel your pain, but it’s much worse here in Taxachussetts.
All the power resides in one hand, and it isn’t the Gov., but rather with the House Speaker.
Also consider that the last 2 Speakers have been tried and convicted for corruption. Hell yeah, “it’s good to be the king”.
We also have the worst attitude towards business in the country, as well as highest property, sales and various other taxes. It is such a shame really.
Spare us the indignation.
Hey, I’m a sharing guy.
You allow the voters to decide when to raise taxes. They won’t. You have no money to educate your children, retain business, fix your roads, etc, etc, etc. It’s not about Dems, it’s about failing to govern. Policy is not a popularity contest, to be decided by whoever can run enough ads on TV to get enough people excited about one issue or another.
You should try to get an actual government started. Fundamentalist Republicanism or Democraticism won’t get the job done.
I know, guys, that it has become very fashionable to bash government at all levels, often for just doing its job, which includes protecting the public interest. And yes, California has strong environmental laws, but they were put in place after unregulated industries had done a great job of polluting the air, poisoning the water and raping the landscape. And despite the belief that the environmental laws are toxic to commerce, if California were a country, it would be the 8th largest economy on Planet Earth.
By the way, I’ve made my living in CA for the last 22 years as a real estate developer, so I am no tree hugger. However, I believe in development standards and public project reviews, and everybody – even Apple – needs to play by the rules.
Reasoned and reasonable…
wrong forum?
: /
Yes, but something like this shouldn’t take a year for approval. The land use isn’t changing, Apple is simply converting HP land/buildings to Apple land/buildings and in the process they are creating even more green space. You should not really need a bunch of committees to “discuss” the whole thing for a year. A couple of independent auditors should be able to verify everything in a couple months at most.
I bet Cupertino would move a little quicker if Apple bought a couple hundred acres in Sacramento or perhaps in North Carolina.
If it’s anything like NYC, once a project exceeds a certain scale, it is automatically required to be put through a lengthy process of study and public dialogue. Responsible development requires some degree of study and iteration with the public, although I grant you some of the bureaucratic overhead on this process could stand to be reduced.
NC would build the building and lease it for $1 a year and give 10 year tax holiday for this opportunity.
The Apple development is a very large scale project in a densely developed area with all kinds of impacts on air quality, ground water, traffic, etc. In California, under CEQA, the City is required to evaluate these impacts, even when the project proponent has offered up-front to mitigate them in various ways. Among other things, this process ensures that nothing one developer does leads to damaging the values of other nearby property owners, both residential and commercial.
The primary reason this process takes time is NOT the bureaucracy, but built-in public review and comment periods. This what is known as democracy – here in America, and especially in California, the citizens in a community are accorded a say in what kind of place they live in. Is this a sometimes messy and time-consuming process? Well, yes, but it beats a system like they have in China where the government can take your land and approve a development without ever asking for your input.
As for Apple moving somewhere else, that is comic fantasy. Despite the California bashing going on here, the fact is that there is literally no other place on Earth where Apple can find the skilled labor pool it needs to grow. There is a reason why virtually all the high tech companies in the world have a presence in California, and many are headquartered here, and that is highly trained and motivated people, and the environment that keeps them here.
Well said. Everybody wants the “benefits” without the cost.
Apple should ask them to do a impact study of Apple relocating their headquarters to another state.
Kentucky is really nice and probably is on the cheap to bring in those kind of deals right now.
Besides, we have two Apple retail stores conveniently located.
Amen, the city is just trying to bleed Apple.
Wong sounds the dumb moron fool who calls hisself ‘Hussein’.
Pouting out it will take a year … why. Kick this dumbass out of office and get someone in who can approve it in 7 days and start building it. Wong is a stupid assdumb fool.
Pot, say hello to Mr Kettle.
Actually, the dumb moron fools that call him “Hussein” tend to be assholes like you.
I guess you never went to a city council meeting EVER!
Go see how a city runs – any city – stick you nose in to the cold hard work of city governance: Do you live in Cupertino? Do you vote in Cupertino? Do you work in Cupertino? Don’t complain and pontificate until you actually know something about governance, like your Ma said, go to church to get religion, go to a city council meeting to understand how a city works, and yes, it could take a year to process a gigantic application project like Apple’s new campus, you can’t do it as a game app all on your own on your iPod, this ain’t about your selfish comfort level, its about COMMUNITY: turn off that damn i-thingy and talk to your community at a public hearing, face to face, smell the body order, feel the sweat, get on the emotional roller coaster ride with your body polotic – that conversation takes about a year, no short cuts folks, takes the same time for a Donut store to be approved in Cupertino … I love the Donut Wheel, so we don’t need another donut store in Cupertino … I wonder about Apple’s 10,000 introverted selfish employee’s running in circles around there new campus oblvious of the community arounf them, sounds like a lab experiment, Apple empyee’s can’t tell if there ass is coming or going.
land the ship in motherland china please
A YEAR? And some people still ask why America is floundering in the doldrums?
Where I live, every local council is obliged to develop a District Scheme and that takes way more than a year, with public submissions leading to a council vote. After that, if you own a piece of land that is zoned this or that, you can build, as of right, anything that complies with use, site cover, height and a hundred other requirements. Developer submits his plans, council inspector studies it to confirm it complies. If it does, approval in a week and nobody else has the right to poke his nose in, object, vote or whatever. It’s the Scheme that is scrutinized by the public, not the building application. And only every 25 years.
What I’d like to read about is a party with Democrat credentials (focus on caring for people) plus a measure of Republican disdain for big government and red tape.
I would strongly object to this building until they change the shape to the outline of an Apple logo complete with the leaf at the top.
I don’t know why there are so many complaints, this building is going to get built and most of the people in the local government are going to do their best to make that happen because it is a worthwhile project.
There is a system in place to review projects and it applies to everyone weather you are building a house, shopping center, school or whatever. This is a densely populated area and a project like this affects a lot of people and since we live in a democracy people have a right to voice their opinion on how a project like this might affect their lives.
A year is not much time for a large project like this besides you won’t be invited to the party anyway.
And people still wonder why manufacturing and jobs are moving overseas!! This whole process should take 4-6 weeks, MAX. Maybe Texas would be more welcoming…
😉
Hey Spark:
It was Proposition 13, clear and simple, that send California down the laundry chute.
http://eec.co.la.ca.us/publications/html/legislat/7804-StatementonProp13.asp
LOL at the Cupertino mayor Wong!!!
He is playing his dirty politics and I can even bet he will dance naked wherever he gets money from. He is nasty dude. Time to kick him off…..
Dude – if he has the guts and favors the local community, let him deal with the issue with the Cement factory (Lehigh).
EIR – yes, the process is to get done and frankly with that large campus there will be both positive and negative impact. The public hearing is just a show off and despite few people criticizing, it will move like a charm. I can 110% assure it is done deal.
The commercial properties prices have gone up since that announcement alone.
Do any of you screaming for rubber-stamped instant approval have any idea of just how huge 3.1 million square feet is? Equal to over 71 acres, or about 54 football fields. If this building was proposed as a shopping mall, it would be the largest in the US, with more than 300k SF to spare.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_shopping_malls_in_the_United_States
And all of the floor space inside the Empire State Building would fit inside the proposed building, again with about 300k SF left over.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empire_state_building
In any democracy, you’re not going to build a project this large without a public review process. Ultimately, the voters in Cupertino have the final say.
Quick fast tracked approvals are fine for smaller projects, but if you try shuttling a large-scale project through with minimal public review, that’s a quick invite for all the NIMBYs to come out of the woodwork and tie the project up in litigation for years.
A year might seem like a long time, but it’s a lot shorter than getting a project bogged down by lawsuits. A thorough public review process, a few goodwill concessions here and there, and a tightly drafted Environmental Impact Report reduce the likelihood of legal challenges. And in the event of a lawsuit, they make it likelier that any challenges get tossed early, rather than dragged out through the legal system for years.
Just finished our new VW plant, which after add-ons is in excess of 2million square feet on over 1400 acres and includes a 32,000-square-foot healthcare with gym, childcare facilities and medical services. No public referendum or BS games and, we gave them $600,000,000 (six hundred million dollars) to help offset their costs. Whole community is glad to have them.
Also just building the new Wacker Chemie facility, which could work nicely with Apple’s solar vision. Wacker broke ground in 2011 on a new solar-grade polysilicon production facility in Bradley County, Tennessee. At a cost of $ 1.45 billion, the plant will be the German company’s largest investment ever
Come on to Tennessee, Apple.
And those plants are manufacturing facilities located out in undeveloped areas, with low population density, low land costs, and a low concentration of professional/technical skills. A technology/R&D campus involves a much higher employment density, and Cupertino is already built out.
The Apple Campus 2 site is in one of the most expensive areas in the country. And it’s expensive because of the labor force — the same labor force that Google, Facebook, Yahoo, and any number of other tech companies are competing for. That same labor force also has a lot of money, the same money that can hire lawyers to try and derail a project, if Apple and the City of Cupertino don’t do their due diligence with the approval process.
You make the argument for low costs, fast track development, and incentives. Those might work for a manufacturing plant, since the labor force needed for manufacturing is more readily available in many different areas. But, Apple requires a much higher skilled labor force for their headquarters operations. There are only a handful of places anywhere in the world with a large and specialized enough talent pool where they can locate, and Tennessee ain’t one of them.
Bottomline is that the Apple Campus 2 is going to happen. The design and/or layout might get a few modifications to mitigate some potential impacts, but that’s about it.
No wonder Texas has the highest rate of businesses moving in the US, and Houston leading the pack. The public would still have a say in the building of Apple Campus #2, but since Eminent Domain is not involved the public hearing would be held within 30 days and with no serious issue involved, liftoff!
In Houston especially with NO ZONING LAWS, and 635 square miles in the city limits alone, along with tax incentives from the City for the obvious reasons, it becomes a NO BRAINER. Other than Dallas’ zoning laws that must be met, the process would virtually be the same.
Wasn’t it Steve Jobs who said the total process of erecting a telco tower takes three MONTHS in Texas compared to three Years in San Francisco? ‘Nuff said.
Tax incentives and zoning variances are only effective if all other factors are equal, and it greatly depends on the type of industry. For some manufacturing, distribution, and backoffice activities, fast track approval and tax incentives can be effective at luring companies. But, for a technology company like Apple, the issues that you talk about would not have any effect on site selection, especially for their headquarters, because of how specialized and skilled their workforce is.
That’s why their server farm (which generates only a handful of jobs onsite) is in North Carolina, and their headquarters and primary R&D facilities are going to remain in Silicon Valley.
The telco tower example that you cite is about San Francisco. Cupertino is not San Francisco.
On June 9 Wong said: “There’s no way we’re saying no to this” (see link above)
Bring it to NC! We have beautiful Research Triangle Park, Apple would fit right in, and it would definitely be a done deal, with tax breaks. And just an hour away from data center!
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