The 6.8-acre site, bordered by Almaden Road, Grimley Lane and Barnes Lane, is zoned under the city's current General Plan for two units per acre, and the developer, Santa Clara Development Company, wants to amend the plan so that it can build five houses per acre.

The Almaden Coalition, a fledgling group of neighbors organizing formal campaigns, is aligning to block the amendment by writing letters of protest to the planning department and city council and attending public meetings en masse.

The coalition has until the planning department's Nov. 17 public meeting to persuade the city planning staff to not recommend the General Plan amendment. If the planning staff does recommend the amendment, the group will then have until the December city council meeting to plead with council members to vote against the amendment.

Residents worry that if this development is allowed to be built, it will be the beginning of the growth they say they came to the neighborhood to escape.

"This is the slippery slope," said resident and coalition member Leslie Jones. "If this slides, it will avalanche."

According to Mark Robson, president and owner of the development company, the original plan called for 30 houses with spacing at five to eight houses per acre and was reduced to 26 homes at five houses per acre, giving each house an average 9,600-square-foot lot size. He said the reduced number of dwellings and increase in lot size was a direct result of hearing at previous public meetings the community's concerns with density.

According to Dave Tymn, city of San Jose planner, the current density designation for that area is called "very low density," and the proposed amendment would change that to "low density."

But the residents say that's not good enough, and they want the city to stick with the General Plan that's in place.

"Why do we have a General Plan?" asked Mac Saberi, coalition member and neighbor. "What's the point if you are just going to keep changing it?"

Tymn said the General Plan is updated with minor changes four times a year, with major changes occurring about every 10 years. It is designed to be a guide for the future growth and needs of the community, which also change regularly, he said.

Coalition members say they know that growth is creeping their way and they are not opposed to it, but many say they made their home purchase decisions based on the current General Plan of two homes per acre, not five.

"The main reason we moved here was the General Plan," said Archie Shiu, coalition member and neighbor. "We like to have a little piece of green in front of our house."

Coalition members say their streets belong to an "estate neighborhood," with lot sizes ranging from 15,000 square feet and up. The proposed development, they argue, would detract from that feel.

Robson contends the new housing is compatible with other developments already in the area that match the density his company is proposing. He adds that the lot size in many San Jose neighborhoods is around 7,500 square feet, more than 2,000 square feet smaller than the average lot size planned by his company.

"We don't want to be like other parts of San Jose," said Dan Ferras, coalition member and resident. "We don't want this density. It will change our lifestyle."

It was the lifestyle and prestige of Almaden Valley that drew them there—the larger lots, less-congested streets, an equine community, a less-harried pace.

Two-lane Almaden Road, the main feeder street to the project site, is already overcrowded, residents say. They complain of long wait times for making turns, speeding, and increased numbers of accidents. Adding more houses to the neighborhood means more cars, and more cars, they say, is a headache and a safety concern.

Gerry Dooley, coalition member and neighbor, worries that as traffic increases and slows during rush-hour creep, the amount of pollution emitted also intensifies.

"The slow traffic adds to pollution," he said. "That's creating more pollution in my neighborhood that I have to breathe."

Robson said he listened to the neighbors' concerns about increased traffic at the previous community meeting in October and said his company is working with the city to study the situation and come up with possible solutions.

"I've personally been out there during peak hours counting cars," he said. "I tried to understand what I was told and what I could learn."

The residents are also trying to get the city council to understand their plight, but worry they are not being heard. They say phone calls and emails to Vice Mayor Pat Dando's office, their council member for District 10, have not been returned.

"Dando has not responded," Ferras said.

They also say that a petition against the site project, which garnered 130 to 140 signatures, also given to Dando's office, went unanswered.

"Dando has been conspicuously absent until now," Jones said. "When the 'for sale' sign went up [at the site], I asked Dando about it and I never heard from her."

Denelle Fedor, legislative assistant to Dando, says she has a copy of the petition and she has replied to them.

"We are responding. We have responded," she said. "We've gone to the meetings and we are responding to their emails."

The coalition hopes that the response they get from the planning department and the city council will help them maintain the rural essence of the neighborhood.

"I feel tricked," said Norma Lane, coalition member and resident. "We did a lot of research and looked for a place that had a General Plan. We had to sell almost everything that we had just to buy this place."

"This will definitely impact the value and the spirit of our neighborhood. It would be so easy for someone with money in their pockets to make more changes if they change the General Plan."