{"id":258303,"date":"2026-04-08T22:30:07","date_gmt":"2026-04-08T22:30:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/258303\/"},"modified":"2026-04-08T22:30:07","modified_gmt":"2026-04-08T22:30:07","slug":"palo-alto-group-buys-coyote-valley-farmland-in-san-jose-for-5-3-million","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/258303\/","title":{"rendered":"Palo Alto group buys Coyote Valley farmland in San Jose for $5.3 million"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the latest step to preserve agriculture and open space in Coyote Valley<\/a>, the largely undeveloped area on San Jose\u2019s southern edges that was once planned for large technology campuses<\/a>, a non-profit environmental group has purchased a 71-acre farm to keep it rural for generations to come.<\/p>\n

The Peninsula Open Space Trust, based in Palo Alto, paid the O\u2019Connell family, which had owned the property since the 1950s, $5.3 million. The farm grows bell peppers, corn, and lettuce, along with pumpkins, for the nearby Spina Farms Pumpkin Patch, a popular attraction for South Bay families at Halloween.<\/p>\n

Located along Santa Teresa Boulevard just south of Bailey Avenue and west of Highway 101, the land had been considered a potential site for a battery storage plant and other development. Instead, it will be transferred to the Santa Clara Valley Open Space Authority and continue to be leased to B&T Farms, the current tenant.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are thrilled to preserve productive farmland that has been family owned for decades, maintaining a small piece of the Valley of Heart\u2019s Delight in perpetuity,\u201d said Gordon Clark, president of the Peninsula Open Space Trust, also known as POST.<\/p>\n

Over the past decade, POST and public agencies, including the city of San Jose, have spent more than $120 million to buy thousands of acres in and around Coyote Valley to preserve it as a key wildlife corridor, farming region and natural buffer between San Jose and Morgan Hill. In the 1980s, the area was eyed as a potential world headquarters for Apple and, in the 1990s, Cisco drew up a similar proposal. Both plans encountered staunch opposition from environmental groups and farming advocates and were withdrawn.<\/p>\n

Last month, POST paid $24.3 million to buy the 1,921-acre Mead Ranch<\/a> from the family of Stephen D. Bechtel Jr., who from 1960 to 1990 served as president of Bechtel, a major American engineering and construction company. That ranch, located in the rolling foothills along Uvas Road with views into Coyote Valley, is part of an emerging mosaic of parks and protected farmland on San Jose\u2019s southern edges.<\/p>\n

A big reason for the purchases is to maintain and enlarge corridors for wildlife. Biologists say mountain lions, deer and other animals need the ability to freely roam from the Santa Cruz Mountains to the Diablo Range and Gabilan Range to preserve genetic variability and healthy populations.<\/p>\n

State and local agencies are studying plans to build wildlife overcrossings or undercrossings to help animals navigate across busy Monterey Road, a railway corridor in the area and Highway 101.<\/p>\n

One of those agencies, the Santa Clara Valley Open Space Authority, based in San Jose, will manage the 71-acre farm purchased in this week\u2019s deal, which has been named \u201cCoyote Fields.\u201d The authority will become the land\u2019s eventual owner.<\/p>\n

In addition to continuing some agriculture in an area where orchards were cut down and thousands of acres of farmland paved as Silicon Valley sprawled from the 1940s to the 1970s, Coyote Valley is also a place for Coyote Creek\u2019s floodwaters to be diverted in major winter storms to avoid flooding in urban areas.<\/p>\n

\u201cPreserving our remaining farmland advances the long\u2011term vision for Coyote Valley as a resilient, productive landscape that supports local food and strengthens the future of the communities we serve,\u201d said Andrea Mackenzie, general manager of the authority.<\/p>\n

Since its founding in 1977, POST has preserved more than 98,000 acres in Santa Clara and San Mateo counties, including in Coyote Valley, along the San Mateo Coast and in the hills around Skyline Boulevard.<\/p>\n

The group, funded by private donations from large foundations and wealthy tech donors, has also spent $63 million over the past two years to buy Sargent Ranch<\/a>, a 6,500-acre property south of Gilroy that had been proposed for a casino, a sand and gravel quarry, and other developments since the 1990s.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In the latest step to preserve agriculture and open space in Coyote Valley, the largely undeveloped area on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":258304,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[28192,53337,29980,31799,29864,76895,37991,114073,88,90,89,2280,114072],"class_list":{"0":"post-258303","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-jose","8":"tag-coyote-valley","9":"tag-farming","10":"tag-farmland","11":"tag-greenbelt","12":"tag-open-space","13":"tag-peninsula-open-space-trust","14":"tag-preservation","15":"tag-pumpkins","16":"tag-san-jose","17":"tag-san-jose-headlines","18":"tag-san-jose-news","19":"tag-silicon-valley","20":"tag-spina-farms"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/258303","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=258303"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/258303\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/258304"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=258303"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=258303"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=258303"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}