Santa Clara And San Jose Residents Join Forces To Stop Massive Housing Development

I love it when the rich elites have the policies they support bite them on the rear.

“An area neighborhood group is making waves about a 17-story behemoth apartment complex on the border of San Jose and Santa Clara.

The proposed development, located at 826 N. Winchester Blvd., would require a general plan amendment. It is slated to come before the San Jose City Council later this month for early consideration. 

The nearly 200-foot, 240,500 sq. ft. complex touts 135 apartments and 15,000 sq. ft. of commercial retail. It divided the San Jose Planning Commission on May 14, resulting in a 4-4 vote and punting the decision to the council without a recommendation.

A group of San Jose and Santa Clara residents in the shadow of the proposed development — the Concerned Cory Neighbors — opposes it. The group claims the project is out of step with the neighborhood’s character.

They wanted more housing.  They wanted affordable housing—they just wanted it in YOUR neighborhood, not theirs.  Now they are getting their wish.  Watch as this neighborhood quickly depopulates and becomes a slum.  A government created slum.

Santa Clara And San Jose Residents Join Forces To Stop Massive Housing Development

David Alexander, Silicon Valley Voice,  6/6/25    https://www.svvoice.com/santa-clara-and-san-jose-residents-join-forces-to-stop-massive-housing-development/

An area neighborhood group is making waves about a 17-story behemoth apartment complex on the border of San Jose and Santa Clara.

The proposed development, located at 826 N. Winchester Blvd., would require a general plan amendment. It is slated to come before the San Jose City Council later this month for early consideration. 

The nearly 200-foot, 240,500 sq. ft. complex touts 135 apartments and 15,000 sq. ft. of commercial retail. It divided the San Jose Planning Commission on May 14, resulting in a 4-4 vote and punting the decision to the council without a recommendation.

A group of San Jose and Santa Clara residents in the shadow of the proposed development — the Concerned Cory Neighbors — opposes it. The group claims the project is out of step with the neighborhood’s character.

Neighborhood leader Lindy Hayes said the impact on traffic and parking will be a nightmare, saying “no one will ever get out alive.” The road diet — a transportation planning technique that reduces the amount of lanes on a road — in the area is already “clobbering” residents, she added.

“It is the wrong place. You may be in favor of a high rise. There are places in the city to place that. This is not the place for it,” she said. “If you look at it, it just suddenly arises out of this very ordinary neighborhood.”

San Jose-based developer Valuable Capital Investment (VCI) has proposed the high-density complex on a little more than half an acre. Another half-acre is earmarked for a combination of retail and a restaurant, publicly accessible park, playground and a public rooftop. 

The idea is to transform the area into a transit hub, known as an urban village.

Part of the group’s reservation, Hayes said, is VCI’s lack of experience building such large developments. Most notably, she said, are earthquake concerns. With such a tall building among residential development, the group worries a large-scale earthquake could be catastrophic.

“We are in favor of housing. We just don’t want to have this; 17 stories in a neighborhood like ours is not workable … To build something there requires a great deal of expertise,” Hayes said.

In a letter to the San Jose City Council, Jeff Santucci, a construction professional, wrote that the project contradicts the city’s emphasis on “thoughtful, location-appropriate development.” 

With its extreme density, the project would, Santucci wrote, “create precisely the kind of traffic and infrastructure strain [the San Jose City Council has] cautioned against.”

Housing advocates, however, say the development would help address the housing crisis.

VCI has designated 20 of the apartments as below-market-rate for very-low-income households. Those tenants would pay between $1,105 and $1,842 a month for a one-bedroom or between $1,244 and $2,073 a month for a two-bedroom.

Housing advocacy group Catalyze SV gave the development an overall score of 4/5, ranking it on six metrics: community, vibrancy, transportation, intensity/zoning, sustainability and affordability. Despite the outcry from the neighborhood group, Catalyze SV scored the project a 5/5 in the community category.

Jake Wilde, manager of development projects at Catalyze SV, said his group scores the community category based on how much outreach the developer does, not whether residents approve of it. 

“We want to allow the people that are here to stay here, not be displaced … It is difficult to imagine how things can be different. It is not a usual thing to see here. It is not usually done,” Wilde said. “Our faith in [VCI] being able to do this comes from their dedication to pursuing it for so long.”

In addition to helping drive down housing costs, the project will add a lot of vibrancy to the neighborhood, making it more walkable, Wilde said.

San Jose’s state-mandated number of housing units it must build before 2031, called the regional housing needs allocation (RHNA), stands at 62,000. However, 94% of San Jose is zoned for single-family residences, making getting to that number increasingly difficult. 

“The land where we can build multi-family housing is a scarce resource,” Wilde said. “We want to see more housing built, and that is really hard to do when land is so scarce.”

In a report to the planning commission, David Fong, the project manager, wrote that the proposal is inconsistent with the general plan in 14 ways, including various land-use, housing and community design policies. It is consistent with the general plan in only one way — aiding in the city meeting its RHNA allocation.

However, he wrote, the amendment is unnecessary, because the general plan’s focused growth strategy and affordable housing policies, already in the works, will achieve this housing element cycle’s RHNA.

“This is a case that we see the general plan policies contained there that are constraining in terms of housing,” Wilde said.

Cities that share a border often have agreements for developments that share a common street.

The neighborhood group intends to implore the Santa Clara City Council to intervene. However, cities are often impotent to halt projects in neighboring cities. While intended to mitigate impacts on neighboring cities, such agreements rarely have legal teeth.

One of the few remedies available to Santa Clara is to submit comments at California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) review. Beyond that, the council can seemingly do little more than make noise.

The topic has yet to come up at the Santa Clara City Council.

David Knight, a spokesperson for the city of Santa Clara, wrote in an email that the planning department is unaware of any such agreement between San Jose and Santa Clara. He wrote that he also intended to confer with City Attorney Glen Googins.

Early consideration for the project is slated to come to the San Jose City Council June 10