GILROY
– The county’s leading affordable housing agency is days away
from hiring an architect who will draw plans for rebuilding
downtown Gilroy’s largest eyesore: the old cannery building on
Railroad and Lewis streets.
This week South County Housing will begin interviewing
architectural and community planning firms. And, with the help of
the city’s blight ordinance, the agency is close to getting the
current owner to demolish at least a portion of the dilapidated
building, saving South County Housing thousands of dollars in
development costs.
GILROY – The county’s leading affordable housing agency is days away from hiring an architect who will draw plans for rebuilding downtown Gilroy’s largest eyesore: the old cannery building on Railroad and Lewis streets.
This week South County Housing will begin interviewing architectural and community planning firms. And, with the help of the city’s blight ordinance, the agency is close to getting the current owner to demolish at least a portion of the dilapidated building, saving South County Housing thousands of dollars in development costs.
The recent developments are clear signs South County Housing is ready to purchase the building, erected in 1935, and turn it into affordable housing units and commercial office space.
“We’d sure like to buy it by April, but there still are some issue we’re dealing with,” said Nancy Wright, senior project manager for South County Housing.
Within two months, South County Housing hopes to get the city’s preliminary approval on a plan to build 90 affordable and market rate townhouses on the site. In addition to the housing, commercial office space would be built for businesses to rent or own.
Complicating matters for South County Housing is the city’s slow growth policy, which limits the number of homes that can be built per year. For market rate homes, which South County Housing needs to build to make development of the affordable units possible, the city has no more housing permits available until 2009. Plans are for half of the units to be market rate.
“We won’t need them for about two more years, but we need to know if we can get them in two years,” Wright said.
With the approval of City Council, the city can make some exceptions to grant additional housing permits. Affordable housing and small residential projects are two examples of developments that can receive permits beyond the normal allocations.
South County Housing’s plan to build 90 units surpasses the number allowed under the small project exemption.
According to Gilroy’s Planning Division Manager Bill Faus, South County Housing’s best chance of receiving housing permits may be to file a so-called General Plan amendment.
The General Plan is the city’s guide to land-use decisions. By creating a so-called specific plan for a certain area – in this case the cannery site – developers can ask the City Council for permission to build extra housing.
“It’s a very involved process, but the project is such that it won’t be as complex and involved as the specific plan for Glen Loma Ranch,” Faus said.
Glen Loma Ranch is a 1,400-unit housing development planned for the west side of town.
During last fall’s City Council campaign, candidates were gung ho about revitalizing downtown, and a mixed-use project for the cannery was seen as a surefire way to get things headed in the right direction.
Candidates compared the potential of the cannery site to Japantown in San Jose, where there is a mixed use of retail shops and office space on the ground floor and housing units on upper floors.
South County Housing is taking retail use off its drawing board. Wright says the agency believes retail on Railroad and Lewis streets would pull from the core of retail shops on Monterey Street between Fourth and Seventh streets.
However, office space on the ground floor and housing above is enough of a mixed use to keep Mayor Al Pinheiro enthusiastic about the site.
“I mentioned to them that they may want retail there, but they made a good point about not drawing business from the immediate downtown,” Pinheiro said. “That shows they’re really trying to be a good partner to the city.”
In October, South County Housing signed a purchase agreement with current cannery owner A.J. Patel. South County Housing has until April 15 to buy seven acres of the 12-acre site.
Remaining acreage on the north side of the cannery site could be developed by Rebekah Children’s Services, Wright said. A representative from the social service agency, located at 290 IOOF Ave., could not be reached before deadline, but Wright said Rebekah’s was interested in expanding its programs into the cannery site.
The two agencies are going to meet in the near future to discuss joint development possibilities, Wright said.
Wright said her agency is about two weeks away from receiving the environmental report on the site. Since the site had been used for industrial purposes, the state needs to certify that it is safe for residential use. If it’s not, the project could get killed.
Patel said he is enthusiastic to sell the site to South County Housing. Before the city notified him to stabilize or raze the two-story section of the cannery building, Patel said he wanted the new owner to pay for demolishing the site.
Now, Patel said he is willing to demolish the second story of the building if South County Housing pays for demolition of the bottom floor.
“Nothing is final yet, but that’s what I think will happen,” Patel said.
The cannery site was developed first in 1915 by Gennaro Filice and John Perrelli. The site was used to pack tomatoes and eventually 50 varieties of fruits and vegetables. The original building burned in April 1931 and, according to city documents, was rebuilt in 1935.
The existing structure was victim to flames, too. In summer 1999 both floors of the two-story section of the building burned in a fire with causes unknown.
The assessed value of the 202,000-square-foot property is more than $1.9 million, but according to city documents, purchases of the property made in the 1990s hit $8.2 million and $8.8 million.
