San Jose City Council
May 10, 2022

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NEIGHBORHOOD SUPPORT: May10th Agenda: Item 10.1(b) - McEvoy/Dupont Street Mixed-Income Development
Erik Schoennauer < >
Sun 5/8/2022 4:11 PM
To: Jones, Chappie <[email protected]>;Jimenez, Sergio <[email protected]>;Peralez, Raul <[email protected]>;Carrasco, Magdalena <[email protected]>;Arenas, Sylvia <[email protected]>;Mahan, Matt <[email protected]>;Liccardo, Sam <[email protected]>;Cohen, David <[email protected]>;Foley, Pam <[email protected]>;Esparza, Maya <[email protected]>;Davis, Dev <[email protected]> 1 attachments (145 KB)
Dupont - 2022.04 SHPNA Letter of Support.pdf;

Dear Mayor and City Council:

A number of neighbors and community leaders have expressed support of our project.  Please see the attached support letter from the Shasta Hanchett Park Neighborhood Association.  And, below are emails of support from community leaders:

From: Cindy Ahola < >
Subject: Dupont Village - Planning Commission Meeting 4.13.22 Date: April 13, 2022 at 12:27:48 PM PDT
To: "[email protected]" <[email protected]>, "[email protected]" <[email protected]> My name is Cindy Ahola. I am writing to you today as a downtown resident (Market Almaden Neighborhood), downtown nonprofit business founder (Community Cycles of California) and Co-President of Rose White and Blue Parade, and member of the Alameda Business Association.

I am writing in support of the Dupont Village project. Very briefly, We need housing now. It is exciting how the different developers on this block are working together and including all tenant groups and incomes.

I am happy to see that “missing middle” moderate income housing is being provided, as it is so rare.

5/9/22, 8:28 AM Mail - Agendadesk - Outlook
https://outlook.office365.com/mail/[email protected]/inbox/id/AAQkADUxOWI4ZjE3LTRkNDEtNGUzMS04MjAwLTIzNzdiYTdkMjc5NAAQA… 2/4 The developers involved have a track record of integrating into and providing benefit to their surrounding communities. In all my roles, I have witnessed and directly experienced such care for the community.

I urge you to approve the project tonight, as it is. Delay is denial.

With regards,
Cindy Ahola
********
From:

Larry Clark >
Subject: Dupont Village Discussion
Date: April 13, 2022 at 4:18:53 PM PDT
To: "[email protected]" <[email protected]> Hi Alec:

I would like to express my support for the development known as “Dupont Village” near The Alameda Neighborhood Business District. I have served in various capacies including president of the Alameda Business Associaon, helped iniate nearly $5M in grant improvements to The Alameda street area and founded the Rose, White and Blue 4th of July with 35,000 spectators, during the last 15 years. I care about this historic area. My business and my employees (including my daughters’ company and employees) find their home here in our business district.

The developers Dupont Village are the same folks I came to know and respect during their implementaon and construcon of “Modera” an apartment development on The Alameda. They took a blighted site and developed a beauful apartment complex serving the needs of many residents. We have benefited from the Modera development, the Whole Foods market next door and the historic Plant 51 reconstrucon which all have transformed our area, making this district a beer place to live.

We are trying to build the infrastructure that our retail shops need for success here on The Alameda. We need to aract customers that would find a home at Dupont Village. There are shops and restaurants here on The Alameda that ready, willing and able to serve these future residents of Dupont Village. Retail in isolated, sparsely populated areas fail. Such retail should not be included in the plans for this potenally great development. Allow Dupont Village to contribute to success of all of our businesses here on The Alameda.

I fear that delay will jeopardize the implementaon of this great development. The cost of everything is going up including materials and labor. We must act quickly to approve to this important improvement to San Jose’s residenal infrastructure. Growing up in San Jose, I worked in the Contadina Tomato Cannery, proximate to this planned development. I would have been astounded then to know then that this kind of beneficial housing project could be possible in this area. I urge that you do what you can to implement this project for all of us devoted to The Alameda.

Best,
Larry Clark

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From: Bryan Franzen < >
Subject: PDC20-020, PT20-036 & PD20-011 -- Staff Report on Dupont Station Project Date: April 13, 2022 at 1:33:21 PM PDT
To: "[email protected]" <[email protected]> Cc: "[email protected]"
Dear Planning Commission,
I am wring this leer concerning the staff report on the Dupont Staon project PDC20-020, PT20- 036 and PD20-011
It is rare that I have seen a housing project with so much potenal for our community. As a pastor and community leader, I know how important it is to encourage projects that focus on sustainability for the community. By intenonally creang a mixed-use facility, this is a project that has the potenal to serve a diverse group of people and house individuals closer to their jobs, reducing both the homeless situaon and also being mindful of our environment due to its locaon.

For us, it is excing to see how the different developers on this block are working together and covering all tenant groups and incomes. In my twenty years of working with communies, I have noced how hard-working middle-income workers oen have the least opons. Since this project is creang housing for middle-income households, it fills a desperate need within our community.

I have seen the work that this group has done in the past, and know that the developers have a good track record of integrang with the surrounding area and providing benefit to the surrounding community.

Please approve this tonight. As is. Delay is denial

Thank you for your consideraon,

Rev. Dr. Bryan James Franzen
Westminster Presbyterian Church
********
--
Erik E. Schoennauer

cell AND office

April 13, 2022

VIA EMAIL
City of San Jose Planning Commission
Honorable Rolando Bonilla, Chair
City of San Jose
200 East Santa Clara St
San Jose, CA 95113

Re: April 13, 2022, Planning Commission Agenda Item 5a: PDC20-020, PD20-011 & PT20-036 226 – 254 McEvoy Street / 205-214 Dupont Street

Honorable Chair Bonilla and Commission Members:

I am writing to you as the President and Director for Planning and Land Use of the Shasta Hanchett Park Neighborhood Association (SHPNA), on behalf of the NA, with our comments regarding the above-referenced project. SHPNA represents 4,500 households immediately West of Diridon Station, in the Garden Alameda, Shasta Hanchett Park, and St.

Leo’s neighborhoods. For more than thirty-five years, we have sought to work with the City of San Jose, developers, and our neighbors to create a vibrant, balanced neighborhood.

Dan Mountsier, a representative of M&M Diridon LLC, first approached SHPNA about the project almost two years ago.

Since then, SHPNA Board members have engaged with Dan during our monthly Board meetings, and at the City- mandated Community Meeting. The importance of this proactive engagement with resident groups and vested interests cannot be overstated; going above and beyond the City’s cursory community engagement process can only improve a development proposal, and we would love to see this level of conversation become the norm, rather than the exception.

Despite not living within our boundaries, Dan has been a fixture in our neighborhood for years. Those familiar with the Rose, White and Blue Parade know him well, as do those who work tirelessly to ensure the success of the annual Stroll The Alameda beer and wine walk. Several years ago, Dan led the development group for Modera The Alameda, the market rate apartment complex next to Whole Foods on The Alameda. That project - with its highly successful Ace Hardware, expansive sidewalk, and thorough, lengthy engagement with the community – has been cited by SHPNA on multiple occasions as a textbook example of proper, responsive design and community engagement.

SHPNA has a proven track record of embracing the construction of additional housing units, especially those that address the substantial shortfalls in affordable housing stock. Therefore, we were happy to have a market rate developer with whom SHPNA has had thoroughly positive dealings come to us with a proposal for a development with both market rate and affordable housing units. No project is perfect, nor will it please all parties. The quote often misattributed to Voltaire is very applicable in this instance; we mustn’t let perfect be the enemy of good. Therefore, we would like to emphasize herein a few key points about the project. These include, but are not limited to, the following:
• Coordination with Other Affordable Housing Developments: At the far end of McEvoy Street, First Community Housing (FCH) has proposed McEvoy Apartments and Dupont Apartments. A recognized thought leader and tireless advocate for affordable housing, First Community Housing reached out to Dan Mountsier when they saw that the parcels before you this evening were going to become available. They saw an opportunity to coordinate with M&M Diridon LLC to create a block that would provide housing units across the economic spectrum; the result is Dupont Station, which, when paired with McEvoy Apartments and Dupont Apartments, will include apartments that meet Extremely Low Income, Very Low Income, Lower Income, Moderate Income, and Market Rate housing needs. This collaboration, and the inclusion of all the income limit housing types on a single block, is exactly the kind of synergy and coordination the City of San Jose should be actively encouraging. To criticize Dupont Station for not having the same income limit housing types that FCH’s development will offer is myopic, and focuses too readily on an individual project’s numbers, rather than looking at its ability to work in concert with surrounding proposals.
• Commercial Space: The presence of commercial space in a development is vital; however, an excess of commercial space can do direct harm to a project’s viability, and to the existing commercial fabric of the surrounding area.

The design and orientation of the proposed commercial space, at the highly visible corner of McEvoy Street and Park Avenue, is appropriate in its square footage, prominence, and scale. One need only look at previous, pre- pandemic developments along West San Carlos to find street front commercial spaces that remained vacant more than a year after the project was completed. Commercial space for commercial space’s sake is ill-advised; the request being made by some for additional commercial space along the sparsely traveled McEvoy Street would not be a benefit to the project’s viability.

It is unfair to saddle an affordable housing project with the requirement for underground parking, as some are suggesting be done. This development is attempting to address the ‘missing middle’ Lower Income and Moderate Income AMI’s, which are far too often ignored in the development of affordable housing. Asking the development to incorporate underground parking could easily delay the construction of the desperately needed housing units by at least a year, and possibly longer, given the glacial pace at which the project has moved through the City’s entitlement process. Given the current economic uncertainty and skyrocketing construction costs, it could even potentially make the project no longer feasible. The colloquialisms about the best of intentions having negative, unforeseen consequences are all applicable here.
• Parks and Amenities: All too often, the park fees collected from projects languish unused, only to be finally spent on amenities beyond comfortable walking or non-vehicular access for the very residents they are supposed to support. The developer has, on more than one occasion, indicated a willingness, if allowed, to contribute directly to hyper local parks and trail improvements, which would more directly benefit the project’s residents and the neighborhood. While more complicated than simply writing a check and ignoring the glacial pace of park construction, this shows a clear understanding on the part of M&M Diridon LLC that a truly viable multifamily development must provide public amenities nearby, so that there can be seen to be a direct link between new construction, new residents, and new amenities for all. • Robust Community Engagement: As indicated above, this should be the norm, not the exception. Projects that engage well before the statutory requirement comes into play are the best means by which to improve a project without creating additional cost or time constraints for the project. • Length of Entitlements Process: If my memory serves, the project has had no fewer than four (4) different Planners assigned to it over the last two years. In each instance, some institutional knowledge was lost, and the project languished further. To turn back the clock by asking for additional changes, when the project already exceeds every quantitative metric the City requires, would delay further the construction of the desperately needed housing units.

SHPNA Board members and volunteers have been diligent advocates for decades. Density and additional development are inevitable; our neighborhood, and the City as a whole, will benefit from well-designed residential developments that engage with their surroundings, while providing amenities and housing types that are desperately needed by both current and new residents. We feel that Dupont Station meets all these requirements. It has already suffered substantial delays in the entitlement process, preventing construction of its desperately needed affordable and market rate housing units. We therefore ask that you approve Dupont Station as presented to you this evening.

Respectfully submitted,
Edward Saum
President & Director for Planning & Land Use
Shasta Hanchett Park Neighborhood Association

Cc: Mayor Sam Liccardo
Vice Mayor Charles Jones, District 1
Councilmember Sergio Jimenez, District 2
Councilmember Raul Peralez, District 3
Councilmember David Cohen, District 4
Councilmember Magdalena Carrasco, District 5
Councilmember Devora Davis, District 6
Councilmember Maya Esparza, District 7
Councilmember Sylvia Arenas, District 8
Councilmember Pam Foley, District 9
Councilmember Matt Mahan, District 10
Chris Burton, Director, Department of Planning, Building and Code Enforcement Toni Taber, City Clerk