Another housing project along Los Gatos Boulevard is one step closer to fruition, with developers continuing to propose homes on the main thoroughfare.
The Los Gatos Planning Commission is recommending a 55-townhome development located on 1.56 acres at 15349-15367 Los Gatos Blvd. Vice Chair Kendra Burch recused herself because she lives close to the project. Irvine-based City Ventures’ proposal includes eight affordable homes and 88 parking spaces. Four homes will include a door to ground-floor retail space so future residents can work where they live in the three-story development.
The project would demolish Genuine Automotive, which has been there for about 50 years. City Ventures could have invoked builder’s remedy — a controversial state law allowing developers to bypass local zoning code enacted when towns are late getting state approval on housing plans — but chose not to. The Town Council will review the project at a later date.
Commissioner Steve Raspe said the site should become homes because it’s listed as an ideal development location in the town’s mandated housing plan. The town must accommodate nearly 2,000 homes by 2031 to comply with the state, 847 of which must be deemed affordable to low-income residents.
“They’ve done, I think, as good a job as you’re gonna do on this site,” he said at the April 23 meeting. “There’s going to be issues. In this town, we’re not going to have any perfect projects. This one checks a lot of boxes.”
Commissioner Rob Stump said he’s concerned about the traffic impact it could cause along the boulevard that already has plans for other large developments. The town found the project would generate an additional 266 car trips a day, which it said would not have a negative effect.
Stump voted for the project with the caveat that the town look into the cumulative effects of Senate Bill 330 projects along Los Gatos Boulevard. The law makes it easier to build affordable and moderately priced housing. One of those projects is a more than 170-home development planned where Ace Hardware is located, a few blocks from the City Ventures site.
“With the application of builder’s remedy in Los Gatos, the town is facing unprecedented development beyond what we have ever experienced and beyond what we’ve studied,” he said at the meeting.
The project demolishes Genuine Automotive, where Mitchell Ng has worked for 25 years. Ng manages the location and said he’s alright with the potential development because he’s close to retiring. He said it’s been his home away from home because he spends six days a week there, 12 hours a day.
Ng said the other three employees who work there are OK with it too even if they can’t continue working in town.
“We’re not completely done yet, but we just have to find another place and there is no other place, not in this town,” he told San José Spotlight.
Pamela Salas Nieting, City Ventures vice president, said the developer added the mixed-use component to mitigate the loss of Genuine Automotive. She added the project’s design drew inspiration from downtown’s iconic architecture to keep Los Gatos’ character.
“Because the commercial is going away, we were trying to come up with a really creative way to bring some economic vitality,” Salas Nieting said at the meeting.
Contact Annalise Freimarck at [email protected] or follow @annalise_ellen on X.
