$3.6 million to buy a historic downtown property known as the Knox-Goodrich building<\/a> at 26 through 36 South First St. An Urban Catalyst affiliate owns the building and would sell it to the city.<\/p>\nBut Erik Solivan, San Jose\u2019s housing director, said during the council meeting in June that the deals would proceed separately and with sufficient scrutiny.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese two things are bridged together, but they are not in any way tied together,\u201d Solivan said. \u201cApproval of one does not fast-track approval of the other.\u201d<\/p>\n
Stakeholders + Neighborhoods Initiative, a group formed by some residents who live near the development site for the proposed apartments, have raised concerns about the project.<\/p>\n
Kathy Sutherland, president of Stakeholders + Neighborhoods, lamented what she saw as the planning staff\u2019s decision to discard design standards that considered the views of residents yet gave developers certainty about project guidelines.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe saw our years of dedication to the city thrown out when a developer made the arbitrary claim that the development would no longer \u2018pencil out.\u2019 Where is the proof?\u201d Sutherland said, referring to The Gifford apartments proposal.<\/p>\n
The neighborhood group believes the project contains some unwelcome design features, including a section of the new building that would be directly next to existing single-family homes.<\/p>\n
\u201cUrban Catalyst proposes an eight-story building that, by the city\u2019s own analysis, is \u2018a building with no setbacks\u2019 at the shared property line with our homes,\u201d Stakeholders + Neighborhoods wrote in the letter.<\/p>\n
Stakeholders + Neighborhoods Initiative noted that typical design guidelines in downtown areas near the Diridon train station require projects to have a step-back arrangement so they don\u2019t loom over existing homes.<\/p>\n
As with any appeal of a staff-approved project, the City Council\u2019s options would be to uphold the appeal or reject the appeal.<\/p>\n
San Jose officials believe the purchase of the historic building and development of The Gifford would greatly benefit the city\u2019s downtown district.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Gifford, along with Urban Catalyst\u2019s Icon-Echo Apartments, Gateway Residential Tower by CORE Developers, and the Bank of Italy conversion to residential units by Westbank, will spur a revitalization\u201d in downtown San Jose, city staffers wrote in a memo to the City Council that was prepared for the June 16 meeting.<\/p>\n
Councilmember Anthony Tordillos said at the June 16 meeting that the deal will help the city achieve its housing goals and noted that San Jose is buying the building for 60% less than what Urban Catalyst paid.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is a slam dunk for the city,\u201d Tordillos said, emphasizing San Jose in 2025 hit only 33% of its targeted mandate for the creation of new housing units. \u201cWe need all the housing we can get.\u201d<\/p>\n
Despite the assertions from Councilmember Tordillos and other city officials, Sutherland insisted that city planners didn\u2019t do their jobs regarding the proposed apartment complex.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe project was not evaluated properly by planning staff,\u201d Sutherland said. \u201cIt really comes down to lack of evidence supporting what they claim.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SAN JOSE \u2014 City staffers have approved a San Jose apartment complex tied to the municipality\u2019s plans to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":409556,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[184,387,7,8,409,1335,4978,383,1011,1337,1533,100,13,388,88,90,89,5406,198,94685,200],"class_list":["post-409555","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-jose","tag-bay-area","tag-business","tag-california","tag-california-news","tag-city-politics","tag-development","tag-downtown-san-jose","tag-economy","tag-housing","tag-housing-development","tag-keywee","tag-news","tag-politics","tag-real-estate","tag-san-jose","tag-san-jose-headlines","tag-san-jose-news","tag-san-jose-real-estate","tag-santa-clara-county","tag-social-alert","tag-south-bay"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/409555","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=409555"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/409555\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/409556"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=409555"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=409555"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=409555"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}