Syufy files builder’s remedy application for 600 units in San Jose

SyRES Properties, an affiliate of the Marin County-based firm Syufy Enterprises, has proposed a builder’s remedy project in San Jose, its second application of the legal strategy in Silicon Valley.. 

The proposal is for two projects for more than 600 units under the provision, The SF Business Times Reported. One project calls for 383 units at 5655 Gallup Drive and the other for 257 units at 741 South Winchester Boulevard, both in San Jose. SyRES submitted preliminary applications for both sites at the end of February, and is expected to submit a complete application later this spring, according to Cheryl Wessling, the City of San Jose’s public information officer.

SyRES owns both sites and previously pitched a 38,000-square-foot fitness center at the South Winchester location. The site used to be the home of a movie theater and now is surface parking; the Gallup site hosts a small commercial building owned by a church. 

San Jose officials told The Business Times at the end of last year that the city would likely be among the scores of Bay Area jurisdictions unable to meet the state-mandated Jan. 31 deadline to adopt a housing element, a kind of blueprint cities use to demonstrate their capacity to meet state housing construction goals. 

Cities that missed the housing element deadline find themselves subject to builder’s remedy, an untested provision of the three-decades old Housing Accountability Act which allows developers automatic approval of their projects in cities that don’t have a housing plan, formally called a housing element, with the state. To qualify, a project must designate at least 20 percent of its units for affordable housing or 100 percent for moderate income housing.  

City officials believed the “progressive nature of the city’s existing zoning” would not lead to builder’s remedy project submissions, even though they missed the housing element deadline, according to The Business Times. 

Real estate attorneys told the Business Times that builder’s remedy projects make the most sense for developers with an existing residential project that could benefit, financially or otherwise, from additional density, or for developers working in places with extraordinarily high land values.

SyRES is already pursuing a builder’s remedy project beyond San Jose. The company has partnered with SyWest, a sibling company, to propose 2,200 units under the provision at 1500 North Shoreline Boulevard in Mountain View. 

— Pawan Naidu