San Mateo OKs Prometheus Real Estate Group Apartment Project

San Mateo is 128 units closer to meeting its state-mandated housing goals.

The San Mateo City Council unanimously approved Prometheus Real Estate Group’s Gateway project at 668 East Third Avenue, the Mercury News reported. Officials greenlighted plans for an eight-story, 128-unit multifamily building to replace a one-story commercial building.

The height is two stories above what zoning for the site allows, taking advantage of a state law allowing developers to build higher in exchange for including some affordable housing.

Twenty of the units will be reserved for low-income residents. In San Mateo County, one of the country’s most-expensive places to live, low-income is classified as earning less than $109,000 annually.

The development will include 89 one-bedroom apartments, 33 two-bedrooms, five three-bedrooms and one studio. A previous version of the proposal called for offices in the building, but that was nixed. Ground-floor retail at the site was not economically feasible, developers said.

Prometheus skipped state-mandated minimum parking requirements due to its location within a quarter-mile of the downtown San Mateo Caltrain station. The developer will still include 73 off-street parking spaces for vehicles and 140 stalls for bicycles.

The approval came months before Senate Bill 79 takes effect July 1. That legislation allows for denser, taller housing near transit hubs and allows developers more exemptions from some local zoning restrictions. San Mateo voters approved their own version of the law that raised height and density limits near transit stops in 2024. In doing so, it pushed the city’s total housing capacity to roughly 20,000 units.

Under its state-mandated Regional Housing Needs Allocation, the City of San Mateo is required to approve 7,015 new housing units by 2031 — the most of any municipality in San Mateo County.

Much of the city’s housing growth is concentrated in former office, retail and commercial sites, including plans for more than 1,600 units through redevelopment efforts like the Hillsdale Reimagined mixed-use project at Hillsdale Shopping Center and Bayshore Commons townhomes and single-family homes at a former office park site.

— Chris Malone Méndez