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Santa Clara kicks affordable housing project down the road
City Council delays decision on 108-unit complex opposed by neighbors
Charities Housing has proposed building 106 affordable apartments in Downtown Santa Clara for lower-income families. But an outcry from hundreds of neighbors led officials to delay the project.
The Santa Clara City Council voted 4-3 to postpone the five-story complex at 1601 Civic Center Drive, the San Jose Mercury News reported.
The issue will be reheard in November in order to consider the site next month for a public park.
Charities Housing Development, a nonprofit developer based in San Jose, bought the 1.4-acre site in 2020, with plans to demolish a vacant office building and replace it with an affordable housing complex. The city contributed $1.6 million to the project, according to the San Jose Spotlight.
The complex would include two apartments for managers and 106 units for families earning between $34,800 and $96,150 a year. Parking would serve 82 cars.
Monthly rent would range from $794 to $1,323 for a studio apartment and $1,134 to $1,891 for a 3-bedroom unit, according to Charities Housing estimates last year.
Neighbors – concerned about traffic, parking and public safety – would have none of it.
The project, more than two years in the making, sparked fierce opposition from residents who cited traffic congestion, the building’s height, safety and the lack of parking. More than 400 people signed a petition opposing the development, the Spotlight said.
Some residents complained that homeless people had broken into the vacant property, stolen bikes and used drugs. The developer said it had secured the site.
“Our neighborhood is already crowded and impacted by blight and petty crimes,” resident Venee Cruz said in a letter to the City Council. “This development will have a huge negative impact on existing communities and will impact our safety and security.”
Last fall, Morteza Shafiei, who represents several homeowners associations, requested the council add her to its agenda to discuss buying the property to create a park instead of an affordable housing complex. The proposal will be heard Oct. 18.
The site is located near a number of resources such as public transportation, parks, an elementary school and a shopping complex on El Camino Real — making it an ideal location for an affordable housing project, said Joe Head, who manages business development for Charities Housing.
“It’s to serve working people and (those) whose income levels don’t make it easily possible or possible at all to live in the area,” Head told the Spotlight.
Some feared that postponing the decision could end the project. Others thought it was a deliberate attempt to shut it down.
“There’s nothing like time that does, in fact, kill a project,” Alex Melendrez, the South Bay manager for the pro-development YIMBY Action said. “I don’t know if there’s much more to be said.”
— Dana Bartholomew