Gilroy council outlines grant-funded Blue Skies planning, fields questions on Amazon data center water and oversight

City staff briefed the council and public on the Blue Skies Initiative, a grant-funded, community-driven planning effort to improve air quality, transportation and resilience, and answered extended questions about environmental mitigation and oversight for the Amazon data center project.

City Administrator Matt Oley said the Blue Skies Initiative is funded by an outside grant and is intended to collect community input to shape planning priorities. "We're in the public engagement portion of this project right now," he said, noting online surveys and outreach events. The plan will inform the general plan and provide data needed for future environmental analyses.

Oley explained a central technical test tied to California environmental review: vehicle miles traveled (VMT). "It's how many miles that development wherever it's created is going to add... that figure in with the average," he said, adding that where projects exceed the standard they must mitigate that delta — for example by funding transit, bike infrastructure or express-lane solutions.

Residents and councilmembers asked about concrete measures the initiative could consider. Councilmember Kelly proposed looking at targeted regulations such as limiting high-polluting two-stroke landscape equipment; staff said such measures could be included as part of air-quality planning even if they do not directly tie to VMT calculations.

The meeting also featured an extended conversation about Amazon's local data center. A resident read an Amazon flyer and quoted project claims that the campus "will use natural air cooling filtered ambient air for 97% of the year," and several attendees expressed skepticism and asked how the city ensures such claims become enforceable commitments.

Oley described how permitting and environmental review capture mitigation: applicants propose measures that become conditions of approval. He said the Amazon project has permit conditions requiring recycled-water delivery prior to building additional phases, roadway improvements, and commitments on power sourcing. "These things layer on — they also have to do roadway improvements... they were required to buy a fire engine to make sure we have the equipment to provide services to the facility," he said, adding that regional agencies (Valley Water, Silicon Valley Clean Energy) also monitor compliance.

Councilmembers encouraged stronger transparency and community oversight. One councilmember described community benefits agreements (CBAs) used elsewhere and urged codified reporting on water and energy use, grant programs and transparent annual reporting; staff said Amazon has previously funded local grant programs and the city is exploring process changes and an agenda item to improve communications and public notice for high-impact projects.

Staff proposed possible procedural updates to the city's decision tree for processing projects so that higher-impact applications trigger active outreach rather than passive web postings; they said options such as targeted email notices for projects with significant environmental impacts will be considered at an upcoming council meeting.

No formal vote on Blue Skies or project-permitting changes occurred at the session; staff said they will return with proposed process improvements and additional public-engagement steps.