Alviso, a low-income Latino community, is used to getting what the rest of San Jose doesn’t want.

Since 1968, when we were annexed into the city, we acquired several landfills, a sewage treatment plant and the Calpine energy plant– not to mention the entire community being designated as a Superfund site.

Soon, the Trammell Crow distribution center will be generating hundreds of diesel truck trips every day, right next to our elementary school. It’s an old story. Projects that wealthier communities would successfully fight somehow find their way to Alviso.

Now, San Jose seems primed to approve the Topgolf project, a 3-deck golf driving facility surrounded by 17-story-tall poles and netting, plus a hotel and retail/commercial space. Topgolf will be open 7 days a week until 2 a.m., serving alcohol and playing amplified music. Because the facility is outdoors, the entire neighborhood will hear it. More than 3,000 vehicles are expected every day.

All of this will happen within 600 feet of the elementary school, library, youth center, park and residences. Is this appropriatefor a quiet residential neighborhood? Is it the right project to locate near an elementary school?

The Alviso Master Plan was intended to preserve Alviso’s small-town character. Growing up in Alviso during the 1980s, I remember our streets were muddy in winter and dusty in summer. We were surrounded by open space to enjoy, creeks and baylands to explore, community to belong to.

Coyote Creek and the Guadalupe River often breached their banks, flooding our town and keeping land speculators away. With time, the creeks were tamed, Silicon Valley boomed, and developers discovered Alviso.

In the early 1990s, in response to development pressures, our community organized. Councilwoman Margie Matthews led a task force that included landowners and community leaders, residents, teachers, naturalists and industry representatives who, together, produced the Alviso Master Plan.

The Plan’s goals explicitly directed: “Retain the small town character, strong community identity, and neighborliness”, “Protect and Preserve Alviso’s strong natural amenities, including the Guadalupe River, Coyote Creek, and baylands” and “Allow for new development at, or at least compatible with, the scale and intensity of existing development.”

The Plan promoted economic development but also looked to preserve our small town feel and character and to allow it to exist adjacent to the bustle of Silicon Valley.

Topgolf is asking for an amendment to the Alviso Master Plan. But the Master Plan was not created to be ignored. Any development in Alviso should follow the Master Plan – not ask for exceptions in order to destroy the very sense of community and neighborhood character and the natural setting that the Master Plan is designed to protect.

Would other neighborhoods accept Vegas-style neon lighting, 17-story nets that will be visible for miles away, and customers coming and going until 2:00 a.m.? Patrons of late-night entertainment venues that serve alcohol are not generally known for being quiet and respectful to a residential neighborhood.

Alviso doesn’t deserve to be treated like its residents don’t matter.

Like other lower socioeconomic status and minority communities, Alviso is struggling to fight environmental and policy inequity, displacement and gentrification . This is a community in urgent need of a strong council representative to protect it and to ensure that development-related documents and community meetings are provided in English and in Spanish.

The City Council should reject the Topgolf project, which is in conflict with the Alviso Master Plan and the San Jose General Plan.It’s a simple matter of environmental justice.

Mark Espinoza lives in Alviso and leads the Organizacion Comunidad De Alviso. He wrote this for the Mercury News.