Gilroy
– City Council has approved a measure to allow building projects
slated for the downtown area to bypass the city’s annual
competition for development rights, a bidding process required for
most housing proposals under the Residential Development
Ordinance.
Gilroy – City Council has approved a measure to allow building projects slated for the downtown area to bypass the city’s annual competition for development rights, a bidding process required for most housing proposals under the Residential Development Ordinance. The measure is aimed at preventing delays in new-home construction in the city’s historic center.
Councilmen voted unanimously Monday night to exempt 100 units of housing.
“We have close to 20 projects that we’re looking at (for the downtown area) in various stages of review,” said Planning Division Manager William Faus. “Many of those projects have a residential component to them. It will help to get these projects moving along.”
In the immediate future, the exemption will help push forward three proposals that will bring 37 new homes to downtown, Faus said.
Those projects will not count toward the city’s 10-year schedule for residential development, which caps home construction at 3,450 homes between 2004 and 2013.
Of the 10-year limit, the city exempts 900 units for proposals deemed valuable to the community, including affordable, senior, and “affordable senior” housing. Those proposals do not have to compete for the limited number of development rights handed out each year. Many of the downtown projects would qualify in the exempt category of “small projects,” but nearly all of the 150 units in that category have been earmarked for numerous other projects around the city, Faus said.
“We have a number of plans that have been held due to the fact that there are no units [available for allocation],” he explained.
While expressing reservations about increasing the number of homes allowed under the city’s 10-year plan, Councilman Roland Velasco said he did not want to “slow down the energy behind downtown development.”
Officials expect the cultural arts center, planned for 2008, to also give the area a shot in the arm. In the meantime, a task force is working on a Downtown Specific Plan that will eventually guide all commercial and residential development in the north-south corridor along Monterey Street, between Leavesley Road and Luchessa Avenue. Faus expected the city to complete the plan within a year.
“In the interim before the specific plan is adopted, it allows those projects to start their formal plans [and] the architectural designs,” Faus said. “It allows them to keep going.”
The debate about the city’s ultimate growth numbers will also continue. During its January study retreat, City Council will revisit the 100-unit exemption in the context of the 10-year plan. The city empowers council members to approve additional housing units in special circumstances, according to Faus. Most recently, the city approved nearly 100 units for Bonfante Gardens under a special exception for nonprofit groups. In the next year, South County Housing is also expected to seek a special exemption for roughly 200 units of mixed housing it plans to create at the old cannery on Lewis Street.
The City Council’s action Monday night will amend zoning rules so that the 10-year build-out number remains at 3,450 homes, with a footnote about the additional 100 units allowed in the downtown area.
“That sounds like fuzzy math to me,” said Velasco, who is “leaning toward” counting the 100 downtown units as part of the original 10-year total. That would mean cutting into the number of permits available for market-priced homes or units in another category. Regardless of the final calculation, Velasco said he wants a hard number for the total amount of homes the city will allow – “not a 3,450 with an asterisk.”
