Curie Landscaping Project

Thanks to all the volunteers who came out on Saturday May 23, 2009 to help keep Curie Drive Park Strips looking good!  We had about 15 or so volunteers working hard sweeping up and putting down new bark.  We were especially pleased to welcome five Santa Theresa High School student volunteers and our District 2 Councilman Ash Kalra.

Thanks too to our City representatives Duane Lindsay and Andrea Morrow for their help in keeping us supplied with what we need even though the city is in a budget crisis – including watering of our trees again this year as well as supplying us with our tools during the work weekend.

Curie Drive is looking good!  It’s hard to believe our project is already 5 years old.  This year our seedlings were pruned, our granite cleaned up, weeds sprayed  -- and now we need to get together to lay some new colorful bark. When we are done, the walls will be power washed and painted!

Date: May 23rd     Time:  7:30am – 10:30am 

Bring gloves, small claw gardening tools, shovels, large sweeper brooms clearly marked with your name.   We also need two trucks with open beds.   We will meet at Los Pinos/Curie intersection. This is a great time to come out and meet your neighbors.  Heck – bring a neighbor along!  HS students can receive community service hours too!  Contact Jacqueline Price at 408.226.8679 or Jacqueline_price@mindspring.com to let her know you’ll be able to come. Water and snacks provided.

We’ll have a BBQ too! Starting at 11:30 to thank our volunteers and to say “Hi!” to all of our neighbors.  Stop on by and bring your appetites!

STFNA embarked on a landscape beautification program to clean up the five park strips that exist between Snell and Cottle on Curie Drive. This project was initially begun in February 2003 with a request to Council Member Forrest William's office about safety issues involving embedded glass on these same park strips by a concerned neighbor who later became an association member. In determining how this might get done, it was determined that a CAP grant would have to be applied for as the city of San Jose's budget did not allow for any re beautification monies beyond the scope of what had already been budgeted for the years 2004-2010.

The CAP grant application was submitted on June 1st, 2004 at 5:00PM in accordance with their requirements. After a 14 month process, the city finally provided us with official permission to apply for the grant and we were provided with a landscaping design. View the final design layouts...

 

 

The CAP grant of the city of San Jose granted our Association $22,000 towards cleaning and beautifying the city owned lots along Curie Drive.  Coupled with the $15,000 dedicated by District 2 (Thanks Forrest Williams!)  the total amount of $37k represents a little over half of what we needed to complete the entire project.  What this means is that we will have to scale down the project into three phases, use the initial round of monies for the 1st phase and continue to apply for grants to make up the 2nd and 3rd phase... The good news is that the majority of cosmetic work can be accomplished in the first stage.

The taking out of all existing dirt, hauling it off-site and replacing it with new soil and mulch.

Three of the park strips do not have full retaining walls and will receive them. The existing walls will be extended to replace the wood criss-cross fences. If there is a gate for service entrance it will remain.

Soil will be brought in and graded behind the retaining walls, walls will be power washed and painted and a hardy vine covering will be planted to soften the look of the wall over the next couple of years.

A combination of decomposed granite (3" thick) and snonor gold flagstone inter lay will be poured into the park strips.

Hackberry trees (known for their hardiness and deep root system) are the trees that have been selected by the City Arborist and will be provided by Our City Forrest.

California indigenous plants will be put into place around the flagstone design which will alternate in-between the trees.

Permission is now being sought to remove 4 trees in this process. 2 large palm tress on one site, 1 seedling and 1 large shedding tree at Curie and Los Pinos. We do not anticipate a problem with this as the trees will be replaced with new trees.

Extras that have been asked for include: Doggy dispensing poles/bags that will exist on 3 of the 5 park strips, a bubbler system laid (as there is currently no water system for any of the park strips) and monies for the indigenous plants. We considered the plant monies as an extra only because we can apply for a San Jose Beautiful grant for up to $3k in the next 4 months that could cover those. If we don't get those monies, it may be that we ask for extra donations from our membership.