TO: HONORABLE MAYOR AND CITY FROM: Vice Mayor Chappie Jones COUNCIL SUBJECT: 1212 South Winchester Blvd. DATE: January 11, 2022 Approved Date 01/11/2022 RECOMMENDATION 1. Accept staff recommendations (a) and (b). 2. Do not make determination on recommendation (c) due to the applicant requesting that the item be dropped. BACKGROUND The development of Urban Villages is a major strategy embodied within the General Plan to help accomplish the goal of achieving fiscal sustainability and improving the job-to-housing balance within the City of San José. District 1 currently has eight Urban Villages. The Winchester Boulevard Urban Village is a commercial corridor that contains a variety of residential, office, and large-scale retail uses. The proposed project falls within this approved Urban Village Plan, providing specific guidelines for the developer to adhere to. Due to the widening of Winchester Blvd. at this location, the developer needed to give up land which significantly shrunk the project’s footprint. As a result, the proposed project is a six-story, 119 room hotel with only a 20-foot setback to the single-family homes that border the site. These circumstances have resulted in consistent community concern, which I have heard over the past several years. It is clear that Urban Villages are a critical tool for growing urban corridors. However, implementing these plans come with their own set of challenges. This project has tested the integrity of these plans, and my office has been working with the community and the developer to navigate the process. I look forward to seeing the developer continue working with the community to utilize this site in a way that will better serve the surrounding neighborhoods, while expanding the commercial component of the corridor and accomplishing the intended goals of Urban Villages. The signers of this memorandum have not had, and will not have, any private conversation with any other member of the City Council, or that member's staff, concerning any action discussed in the memorandum, and that each signer's staff members have not had, and have been instructed not to have, any such conversation with any other member of the City Council or that member's staff.
COUNCIL AGENDA: 01.11.22 ITEM: 10.3