Permits approved for new residences

Developments OK'd for Delmas and Willow corner, Kmart site

By Kate Carter

San Jose Planning Department officials last week approved permits for two new residential developments in Willow Glen.

Planning department staff signed permits for a development of 30 single-family attached residences on 1.8 acres on the southeast corner of Willow Street and Delmas Avenue. They also signed permits for a 442-unit residential and retail development on 10.7 acres at the corner of Southwest Expressway and Fruitdale Avenue, previously the site of a Kmart store.

There was only one person at the planning director's hearing Aug. 29 to raise concerns about one of the developments. Downtown San Jose resident Rusty Lutz said he would prefer that the existing older single-family homes, that will be replaced by the development on Willow Street, be preserved and moved to other locations. Developer Pulte Homes representative Dennis O'Keefe said he had approached Lutz and two other interested parties about moving the homes, but none were immediately ready to relocate them.

Because a historical analysis found the homes to not be historically significant, planner Anastazia Aziz said, the city could not require the developer to preserve them and cannot stall the permit process to give interested individuals time to find sites for them. However, Pulte Homes is required to salvage the homes' materials, and O'Keefe said the developer has already contracted with a nonprofit organization to dismantle the homes and reuse the materials.

Lutz added that the new development will be good for the neighborhood. Neighbors had been concerned at previous community meetings about the impact of the two- and three-story development on the neighborhood of mostly single-family homes. In addition, the development will replace several businesses along the avenue.

Aziz said the developer has been cooperative in working with the city and addressing the community's concerns, and she believes the development will help improve the somewhat rundown area.

No one expressed concern about the new development on the southeast corner of the Kmart site that will also include 8,700 square feet of retail space. Aziz said the site had been zoned to allow for more than 500 residential units, as it is located across from a planned light rail station along the Vasona Light Rail Corridor, but developer John Vidovich chose to build fewer units. She also said that a General Plan amendment to allow the construction of a 250,000-square-foot office building on the north corner of Southwest Expressway and Fruitdale Avenue was approved earlier this year, but the developer has not yet submitted plans for the building.

Individuals near the sites have until Sept. 10 to appeal the permit approvals. For more information, call 408.277.4576.

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