Two major development proposals for northwest areas under review
tonight
Gilroy – Planning Commissioners will review two major development proposals tonight – one that would close a chapter in the city’s growth toward the northwestern foothills, and another that would open the book on development of scenic Hecker Pass.
Representatives for Glen Loma Corporation will ask planning commissioners for permission to build 71 homes on as many acres along the base of foothills in northwest Gilroy. The homes, which will line the western side of Rancho Hills Drive, north of Longmeadow Drive, represent the final phase of a development that began 20 years ago, according to project representative John Filice.
“It’s the last phase of the Rancho Hills/Deer Park project,” Filice said. “There are at least 500 homes out there already. … It developed along Longmeadow Drive, and then it looped around Sunrise (Drive).”
The homes in the latest phase, which is being developed in tandem with Arcadia Development Company, will measure 6,000 to 7,000 square feet. If approved, construction could begin in summer 2007 with the first homes on the market in 2008, Filice said. With the completion of Rancho Hills, Glen Loma will turn its attention to another long-term project – a 1,700-home development slated to rise over the next decade in southwest Gilroy.
At the same time, the first of 500-plus homes may begin to rise along Hecker Pass Highway, the winding tree-lined corridor that stretches into the Santa Cruz Ridgeline. Representatives of De Nova Homes, in Pleasanton, will ask commissioners tonight for permission to build 87 homes south of Hecker Pass, just east of Bonfante Gardens. The project is the first of two housing clusters slated for land owned by Jim Hoey. A northern cluster just east of the public golf course will include 78 units. The projects are slated for 2480 and 2485 Hecker Pass Highway.
No residents can move into the future homes until Third Street is extended west along the Uvas Creek corridor and linked to a new intersection with Hecker Pass, just east of the city’s public golf course. Construction can begin on the southern cluster of homes, accessible through existing private roads, as long as city leaders sign off on detailed plans for road improvements, new parks and other infrastructure slated for the area.
Those improvements are detailed in plans that planning commissioners also will review tonight. Also on the agenda is an a development agreement that would allow landowners to build hundreds of homes years earlier than expected. In exchange, the city would receive, among other things, a three-acre park and various public infrastructure improvements at no cost, including the “under-grounding” of utilities and repairs to hundreds of feet of sewer line.
