Sunnyvale won’t pay for museum expansion study

SUNNYVALE » If a controversial plan to expand the Orchard Heritage Park Museum is going to proceed, backers of the proposal will have to pay for an environmental analysis, the Sunnyvale City Council has determined.

The council decided on a 5-1-1 vote Feb. 4 that Sunnyvale shouldn’t pay for an analysis of the expansion, which would result in the removal of up to 10 Blenheim apricot trees from an adjacent historic orchard.

The proposed 1,600-square-foot museum expansion, to include the addition of a research library and exhibit hall, has pitted the all-volunteer Sunnyvale Historical Society and Museum Association against residents who want to preserve the 10-acre, city-owned park, one of the last vestiges of the region’s farming history.

“This is the time to shut down this proposal. … Why are we considering a proposal that would pave over a portion of a historic orchard?,” said Maria Hamilton, one of several residents to speak against the expansion at the meeting. “The trees will not be transplanted, they will be replaced and that would be the loss of 10 mature apricot trees.”

Like much of Santa Clara County, Sunnyvale was once home to acres of orchard and farms known as the Valley of Heart’s Delight, farmland that in the past few decades has been paved over and developed for homes, strip malls and tech campuses. The apricot farm next to the Sunnyvale Community Center was once 43 acres but since has shrunk to 10, with about 800 trees. It’s a popular summer spot for residents.

The Museum Association has said it would replace the six to 10 trees to be removed for the building expansion with new trees elsewhere on the property.

Ten trees are just a fraction of the orchard, said Mike Serrone, a resident who supports the museum expansion.

“I think relocating less than 1% of the trees is a small price to pay, if it’s even a price at all,” he said.

The museum, conceived to preserve the home of city founder Martin Murphy Jr., was completed in 2008 and is dedicated to the city’s history. Though owned by the city, it is run and managed by the Museum Association, which is made up of volunteers.

“The annex is an extremely important project for the future of the museum and to maintain and preserve the history of Sunnyvale,” Richard Mehlinger, a member of the museum’s board, told the council.

When the council voted last July to allow the expansion proposal to proceed, it was with a commitment from the Museum Association to pay for all associated costs, including an environmental analysis.

But when the city later approached the museum board with cost estimates for the study, the board said Sunnvyale should pay for the $20,000 to $36,000 study, said Public Works Director Chip Taylor.

The Museum Association also contends that an environmental analysis isn’t even necessary and the city should pay for one if it believes otherwise.

“It’s a city-owned park; this is not private land,” said Laura Babcock, the museum’s volunteer director. “The cost makes it virtually impossible for the historical society to raise funds to pay for this.”

The city asserts that the California Environmental Quality Act requires an analysis because museum expansion would affect the orchard, a historical resource that’s also considered farmland.

The council ultimately voted not to fund the study, with Mason Fong abstaining and Glenn Hendricks dissenting.

Hendricks argued the city should pay for the analysis just as it does for studies related to any cityowned park.

“These are community assets and if the city was going to do work on any of its other parks, we would be funding the CEQA work,” Hendricks said. He proposed paying for the full cost of the study out of the council’s budget.

Councilman Russ Melton, citing the nonprofit’s public financial statements, said the museum has the ability to pay for the study but doesn’t want to.

“If an applicant wants to get their project across the finish line, they have to cooperate with Sunnyvale’s professional staff and do the environmental analysis that staff determines is necessary, and the applicant has to pay for it,” Melton said. “An unwillingness to pay is being conflated with an inability to pay.”