San Jose City Councilmembers passed a resolution Tuesday that increases efforts to solidify a new location for Berryessa Flea Market vendors, as the city has a year left before the owners issue a one-year notice of closure.
The three-part resolution approval made during the city council meeting paves way for the negotiation and execution of market operations and site assessment consultation by Estolano Advisors, an urban planning and public affairs firm.
“I just want to point out that there's a tremendous amount of work that we've been doing with the vendors and this action today is in line with previous council direction to ensure certain consultant studies are accomplished and that the funding for them is appropriately allocated,” said Nanci Klein, office of economic development and cultural affairs director.
The Bumb family, which claimed ownership of the Berryessa space after founder and owner George Bumb Sr. died in 2000, received approval with an 11-0 vote in a July 29, 2021 city council meeting to begin planning for the 2024 project of residential and commercial buildings on the current 65-acre terrain of the Berryessa Flea Market.
Klein, who led Tuesday’s resolution regarding the flea market or “La Pulga” (the flea) to Spanish speakers, said the office of economic development and cultural affairs has implemented multiple work streams in the past year since the flea market’s rezoning was approved by city council.
“[The Bumb Family] agreed to contribute $5 million toward a vendor transition fund and the city has set aside an additional $2.5 million for this purpose,” she said regarding the total $7.5 million reserved for vendors’ transition in relocation.
Klein said the rezoning project includes five acres for an urban market. The advisory group, which is composed of supermajority vendors, Bumb family representatives and city officials, will provide recommendations on how to spend the vendor transition fund and help with the design and operation.
She said congruent with council direction, the office of economic development and cultural affairs utilized the $500,000 allocated to it in January to create the flea market advisory group and initiate the two economic studies, which came out of Tuesday’s resolution.
Resolution approval
Two out of three of the economic studies discussed on Tuesday were approved, which includes public market operations and models and an alternative site assessment.
The other proposal, an economic and cultural impact study, would have taken up half of the total $350,000 budget cost allocated to economic studies, which San Jose Mayor Liccardo and other councilmembers including David Cohen said is an unnecessary expenditure.
“I'm concerned that I'll be off this council and several of us will be and this money will be spent and one thing I'm certain of, we will wish we had more money to help vendors who are struggling with this relocation and help support these families,” Liccardo said during the city council meeting. “I'm not certain we're gonna wish we had more studies.”
Liccardo said he thinks the alternative site analysis is critical and the public market operations will be very important to understand, but the economic and cultural impact study is merely “performative” and will be wasteful.
After many back and forth motions regarding the study, the council voted to reallocate the $150,000 budget cost of the economic and cultural impact study elsewhere in the economic studies budget. The office of economic development and cultural affairs will work with the consultant group, Estolano Advisors, to internally reallocate the funds.
“I'm hearing very much the sense of urgency coming from several members of the community,” Liccardo said. “The economic and cultural impact study, which would comprise more than half of the money that we're spending here, is going to slow us down, be consuming dollars that could otherwise be going to vendors and their families or otherwise helping with his transition.”
Vendors have been renting spaces on a month-to-month basis or through six-month licensing agreements since July 2021 at the Berryessa Flea Market, which Liccardo said has already displaced many families because of costs.
Apart from economic studies, the resolution will carry over unspent funds in the flea market appropriation from last fiscal year to this one, which will help fund the consultant agreement for the approved studies, according to the resolution document.
Additionally, it will allocate $100,000 from the $2.5 million reserved for the vendor transition fund for outreach and language access services as many vendors are non-English speaking and primarily speak Spanish or Vietnamese, according to the same document.
Community concerns
Many community members supported the resolution during the public forum section of the meeting, but expressed concerns about the lack of time.
Kelly Snider, San Jose State Urban and Regional Planning director and local real estate developer, asked the council to take a moment and actually look at her halfway through her allotted time to speak publicly.
“The things that the city council specified as conditions of approval a year and two months ago, I think it was in May of 2021, have had zero effect,” Snider said. “Creating the committee, creating the vendor fund, putting [the office of economic development] on this, all of that is going well, but we only have nine and a half months left until [the Bumb family] is able to issue the closure notice.”
The Bumb family can issue a written notice of planned closure or suspension of operations of the market beginning on July 1, 2023, leaving the Berryessa Flea Market advisory group a year to find a new location.
Alex Shoor, Catalyze SV executive director and cofounder, said the closure notice will displace vendors. Catalyze SV is an organization that says it promotes equitable and sustainable living, according to its website.
“Catalyze SV has been supporting the Berryessa Flea Market Vendors Association as part of a coalition to ensure that these vendors and these businesses and this economic revenue doesn't leave our city,” Shoor said. “We also just want to re-emphasize . . . time continues to be of the essence.”
The Berryessa Flea Market Vendors Association is an organization focused on highlighting vendors’ voices and creating awareness about the displacement of vendor families for new construction projects, according to its website.
Roberto Gonzales, Berryessa Flea Market Vendors Association president, said he supports the economic studies that will be done through the consultant, but has some reservations about any money leaving the vendor transition fund when at the same time, it isn’t expanding.
“But this can be an important moment in adding funds to the vendor transition fund and opening it to uses that can directly help vendors now and not wait till we do get that one year notice,” Gonzales said. “We do have that doom clock, counting down and with no confirmation or reassurance otherwise from the landowners.”
Local community member Blair Beekman said while he isn’t as informed on the negotiation process between vendors, the owners and city officials, he is concerned the discrepancy in acreage isn’t on the forefront of priorities.
Beekman said relocating from the 65-acre terrain of Berryessa to a five-acre location will displace many vendors and their families, and while the vendor transition fund is in part intended to help with that, increasing acreage needs to be within the scope of the alternate site assessment, which came out of Tuesday’s resolution.
“If bargaining can also in the future include ideas where the vendors can have a part in designing the future of the complex, that can maybe allow them a few additional acres for their shops,” Beekman said. “I think it's a nice approach that I'm sure all sides are scared to do, but on paper, I think it's a really nice idea.”
Nanci Klein said the priority next steps are completing the economic studies to gather information on decisions and opportunities while continuing to support vendor outreach, engagement and assistance.
