On December 6, the VTA Board of Directors will consider adopting the Final Relocation Plan for VTA’s BART Silicon Valley Phase II Extension into downtown San Jose and the City of Santa Clara. The adoption of the Final Relocation Plan is a critical milestone in the project schedule and will allow VTA to enter into negotiations for the first phase of property acquisitions.
 
On June 4, 2018, the Federal Transit Administration (FTA) awarded VTA’s BART Phase II Project a Record of Decision for its federal environmental document. With this action and VTA’s Board of Directors’ certification of the state environmental document, VTA received the authority to acquire property for Phase II.

As with any major transportation project in an urbanized area, some relocations of residential and non-residential occupants are unavoidable for the project to be completed. Federal and state laws require a public agency to prepare a program to appropriately address impacts to property occupants that may arise as a result of the agency’s acquisition of the property – this is documented in a Relocation Plan that is formally adopted by VTA.
 
A Draft Relocation Plan was prepared and made available for public review and comment between August 17 and September 17, 2018 in accordance with California law. The Final Relocation Plan includes comments received from the public and responses to those comments in Appendix G (page 90). The plan will be presented to the Board for review, consideration, and adoption this Thursday.
 
Three main themes emerged from public commenters and the VTA responses follow: