Update as of February 2026: The City of San Jose is still considering whether to approve the proposed Heritage Oaks cemetery in the hills above Coyote Valley. You can still use the online form at the bottom of this page to send your comments to the city.
Here’s another opportunity to help protect Coyote Valley. Please email the City of San Jose to show your concerns about the environmental impacts that the proposed Heritage Oaks Memorial Park will have on Coyote Valley!
What’s Happening
In 2014, the city of San Jose rezoned 275 acres of hillsides on the west side of Coyote Valley for a cemetery. The Heritage Oaks Memorial Park would sprawl over 102 acres – an area larger than 77 football fields – and would include a crematorium, multiple mausoleums and other buildings, and an extensive network of roads and parking lots. As part of this massive project, the developer will carve up the hillsides, excavating the ridges and knolls by as much as 75 feet and using the extracted soil to level out the natural contours of the hills. The developer also plans to install and irrigate 75 acres of non-native turf grass and remove more than 100 native oak trees.
When this cemetery was first proposed in 2014, Green Foothills and other environmental groups strenuously objected to this destructive project, but the city approved it over our opposition. The project was then paused for years, but now the developer has applied for a permit to move forward with construction. However, much has changed in the years since 2014. Thousands of acres of land surrounding the cemetery are now protected open space, and wildlife studies have provided new data about the importance of this site as a wildlife linkage. The project itself has also changed since 2014, adding a crematory and a three-mile recycled water pipeline through Coyote Valley, which were not part of the 2014 proposal. Because of these changes, the city has conducted additional environmental analysis (called a Supplemental Environmental Impact Report or SEIR).
Why It Matters
The Heritage Oaks Memorial Park is located directly in the path of wildlife movement from the Santa Cruz Mountains across Coyote Valley. Wildlife attempting to migrate through these hills towards Coyote Valley would be deterred by the disturbance, noise, lights, and human activity associated with the multiple mausoleums, a crematorium, and an extensive network of roads and parking lots sprawling over many acres.
The developer also plans to install 1.4 million square feet of lawn burial grounds and non-native turf grass in this phase of the project, and to construct over 3 miles of pipeline through Coyote Valley to convey recycled water to irrigate all this non-native grass. Water, including recycled water, is precious in California, and should not be used to irrigate millions of square feet of grass lawns, particularly when ordinary residents are called upon to remove their grass lawns to conserve water.
Because the cemetery would sit on top of the ridgeline, it would be clearly visible from nearby nature preserves such as the Coyote Valley Open Space Preserve and the Máyyan ‘Ooyákma preserve on Coyote Ridge. Scenic views from the trails in these preserves would feature this massive cemetery on top of the hills instead of the native landscape there now.
What You Can Do
Please email the city to show your concern about the impacts this project will have on Coyote Valley.
Thank you for speaking up!