Trust Invokes Builder’s Remedy for Apartments in San Jose

A trust led by Paramjit Kaur and Surinder Singh has refiled plans under the state builder’s remedy to fast-track approval for an 11-story apartment building in San Jose.

The unidentified trust will employ the state legal loophole to expedite approval for the 80-unit complex at 101 and 109 Delmas Avenue, near Google’s stalled transit village at Diridon Station, the Silicon Valley Business Journal reported. It would replace a Delmas Market and Imperio Taqueria.

The development at Delmas Avenue and West San Fernando Street in the historic Lakehouse District would rise across from Google’s proposed Downtown West, near Adobe’s headquarters and the SAP Center.

The apartments would stand on a 0.2-acre site owned by the trust.

Plans call for 80 studios, including 16 affordable apartments for low-income households, plus 1,400 square feet of ground-floor shops.

Kaur and Singh’s group had filed plans for the project in July seeking fast-track approval through SB 330, a state law that limits project hearings and appeals.

Singh told the Business Journal that he would be ready to move forward with construction once the city approves the building permits.

The apartment tower, designed by MANU Studios of San Jose, would feature white, gray and putty sections built atop the commercial podium, according to renderings. It would include large windows, inset balconies and a terrace deck. Blocks of apartments would be edged in orange.

San Jose’s failure to certify its state housing plan leaves the city open to the builder’s remedy, a three-decade old provision in state housing law that allows developers to skirt local zoning rules as long as projects include 20 percent affordable housing.

The city is one of eight cities in Santa Clara County that have failed to get their housing plans approved by the Jan. 31 deadline.

San Jose must plan for 62,200 new homes by 2031. Its most recent Housing Element, as the plan is called, was submitted in November. It is under review, according to the Business Journal.

As of mid-December, the city had received 28 builder’s remedy proposals.

— Dana Bartholomew