Status: pending rezoning
Permit: PDC11-030 and PDC11-018
Events: Community Meeting, February 8th 2012, 6:00 pm, at 405 River Oaks Parkway
Developer: Irvine via HMH
Acres: 8.1 acres
Units: 438 apartments (rezoning will allow up to 450)
Developer's Website: Irvine Company
Details:

• Community Meeting, February 8th 2012, 6:00 pm, at 405 River Oaks Parkway
  The meeting notice says nothing really new. Here is the contact information given:
  City of San Jose: Planning Services Division, Lesley Xavier, Project Manager, (408) 535-7852, lesley.xavier@sanjoseca.gov
  Applicant: Irvine Company, Tom Keller, Vice President, Development, (949) 720-2869, tkeller@irvinecompany.com
• 1/19/2012 -- HMH follow-up meeting
  Attendees: Tom (HMH), Todd (Irvine), Mike, Rhonda, Laura
  
  • Irvine gave up on keeping the street between 401 and Thermo-Fisher private. The city was not budging on their requirement. But they are keeping it narrow and will keep the trees along the property line.
  • Irvine will supplement trees along Parkside edge with other mature trees. There will be 2 layers of tree screen along the paseo: at the boundary and at the Irvine building.
  • Patios and balconies along Parkside border will be small ones to discourage "hanging out" on them and to maintain some privacy for Parkside.
  • Suggest we bring up traffic, crosswalk, police response time, and PARK at community meeting. Community meeting scheduled to happen in about 2 weeks.
  • Will hash out exact details on construction logistics closer to PD permit time. Irvine will continue to work on that with us.
  • Irvine is committed to a style that is "Tuscan, Mediterranean, Spanish". They will NOT be doing "modern". So it will match our community reasonably well.
  • Essex Park deal is still in the works. Right now we are waiting for council meeting where council will give city staff the right to negotiate the agreement. Should happen at Jan 31st meeting.
  • Pointed out traffic issues with Irvine representative. He said it will remain a concern with them.
  • Talked a bit about the levee and access. Warned them that they'll probably want a landscaped fence to discourage the "offroad" walkers that make the Water Dept levee maintainers so angry. They were not aware of these issues so will think about that interface some more. Suggested a levee access point on NorthWest corner of their property, but warned it would be an uphill battle to get Water Dept to approve.
  • Crescent project DOES have retail tenants! They are still working the agreements but "at least 2 nice restaurant-type tenants, 3000 sqft each plus outdoor seating".
• 1/6/2012 -- HMH follow-up email
  
  • We met with the DOT and Public works folks... They will go out and take a look at the crosswalk issue. Evidentially they have been working on a bike lane upgrade and crosswalk solution for this area for a while. They will be coming to our formal Community meeting and will also be providing a separate outreach process as well on their independent effort to upgrade pedestrian and bicycle safety for the River Oaks corridor (they have a plan and evidentially money to do this effort!!).
  • The stop sign issue didn't go as well... I guess they have discussed this issue with folks in RONA before... and they feel fairly strongly that they don't want to diminish the traffic capacity. They do want to use the bicycle lane/crosswalk effort to improve safety and slow down folks in the area though... it looks like there will be a separate process that you folks can take part in with this whole effort to improve facilities on River Oaks... it appears that it will track a bit behind our current effort... but will be implemented before we are under construction...
  • They do want a "minor" street on our project. The far side... AWAY FROM YOU FOLKS!! So I have some work to do to keep that to a minimum... as Irvine doesn't want one at all. As I mentioned... they are holding firm with us... and will require we build at least part of it now... I don't think it really will affect you folks... as they did agree that it WILL NOT connect to the existing 3 way intersection... it will be just a stub street on our site (for now acting like a half street cul-de-sac).
• 1/5/2012 -- Parkside western-border residents meeting with HMH about Irvine's plans for 401/405 ROP
  Attendees: Tom (HMH), Mike, Laura, Jean, Rhonda
  Three documents from this meeting:
  • Parks Location Exhibit
  • PD Zoning Plans
  • HOA Paseo Graphics
  • Tom has included some views in the "HOA Paseo" files of what the paseo would look like when you're standing at either end.
  • Note how there is now a paseo entry cut-out in the middle of the building along Parkside edge. That was done by Irvine to reduce the "massing" of their buildings in relation to ours.
  • Also note the lofts units are removed along Parkside edge.
  • Residential Reallocation Approved. Traded 450 affordable housing units from Phase I are reallocated as full price units in exchange for Irvine paying the full affordable housing fee. This is a special exception because currently San Jose has no money to build affordable housing and they needed it. Only 600 units are allowed to convert with this exception. The remaining 150 are unlikely to convert and will stay affordable.
  • HMH has met a few times with Matt Cano of Parks.
    • The paseo between Parkside and Irvine/401/405 will be private. It is required to be accessible for fire trucks but it will not be a public access.
    • There will not be a public access road along the creek levee bottom. The city originally wanted it there to "connect the grid" (which RONA thought made no sense since there's nothting to connect to). However, there still will be a road on the western edge of the property (between 401 and Thermo Fisher Scientific). The city wants to preserve a right to connect the grid through to Cisco.
    • Can't obligate the city to use Irvine's park fees to build and maintain Essex park. Needs the council to tell Parks to spend the money that way. But there's a chicken-and-egg problem: needs money to commit the money.
    • Will use the first Irvine park fees to hire consultants to start planning the Essex park. That will help shorten the time the money is unallocated and make it less likely the money will wander away.
    • Parks also wants money to build and pave our section of Coyote Creek Trail. So Parks is thinking if something goes wrong with the Essex deal, that's where the money will go.
    • Essex park land won't be owned by the city until the 3rd Essex building starts. And that building is unlikely to be built because the density requirements make it an (expensive-to-construct) taller building. So the city can't start planning for the park until it owns the land. So we need to have the planning done, and Irvine's full park-fee ready to be paid, so we can politically pressure Essex into handing over the park land early.
    • RONA is going to have to help herd the park planning process along for this deal to work.
  • Public community meeting around end of the month.
  • Public works will be changing the ROP median to use recycled water soon-ish.
  • Stop Sign Warrant Analysis -- this is the process for determining where crosswalks will go. Messy process. Irvine will start the process but will need RONA to push it through. Will not wait for it.
  • Irvine is going to keep all the trees along Parkside border, including the mature redwoods along the ROP/Parkside/Irvine corner.
  • Plan changes since we last met:
    • Flatter roofs but still 5 stories along Parkside edge.
    • Entires Parkside edge is living units. Garage is hidden.
    • Irvine is ~2 stories higher than Parkside.
  • PD Permits (official construction permits) are in February 2012. That's the planning stage that really matters. Demolition of the buildings starts August 2012. Construction starts January 2013.
• 11/15/2011 -- Parkside western-border residents meeting with HMH about Irvine's plans for 401/405 ROP
  Attendees:
  • HMH Representatives: Tom Armstrong (408) 487-2000, Melissa Lander
  • Residents: Mike Bertram, Laura Carns, Sarah, Manoj, Ali
  Laura's Notes:
  • Start deconstruction Aug 2012. Start construction Dec 2012.
  • Apartments. High-end units, not affordable.
  • Current plans are very close to the proposal on file. They've moved 1 story from Parkside-facing buildings (on the east side of their property) to the west side of their property (facing commercial property).
  • Building codes require a fire-access perimeter road. On Parkside boundary, it will be a paseo/park-like with landscaping. It will be "paved" with turf block. Tom asks if we want a public-access "paseo" here? Doing so would increase the lighting requirements.
  • Given the fire access road, buildings will be at least 50 feet setback from Parkside property line. That is about the same as the industrial buildings are now.
  • Buildings along parkside will be 4 stories. One story of parking below ground. On the interior, the groundfloor is parking but on the exterior it is units. That gives ~ 40 units facing Parkside.
  • Each unit will have one balcony, about 70 sqft each.
  • Will leave median intact. Will keep street trees.
  • Same driveways as current property, no traffic controls. Since this is similar to Parkside/Millbrook, they would like us to give feedback on traffic situation after Essex/Sony completes so they can help us get any traffic issue fixed.
  • Irvine is very interested in keeping Parkside folks as happy as possible with their development. We can suggest things for their architectural style, the landscaping along Parkside, placement of buildings, lighting along the paseo, etc.
  • 401/405 ROP will provide $9 million in Park Development Ordinance (PDO) fees. The property is too small to include a park on-site. Irvine is thinking about using these to cut a deal for maintaining the Essex park so that that park gets built. Tom also mentions that there is $77 million sitting in the PDO fund right now; the city is refusing to spend it because (a) they don't have maintenance money and (b) the interest from this fund can be diverted into the General Fund to help their budget woes.
  • Santa Clara Unified School District is hoping to complete purchase of Agnews land within the month.
• Update 11/2/2011: Irvine has bought the property and is planning apartments. See details in here. Also, city permit PD11-030.
• City feedback on initial developer's plan has been posted: < a href="projects/PDC07-060/405rop_20071220_page1.gif">page 1, page 2, page 3, page 4, page 5
• Development will not likely occur until the current lease ends in 2 years, since it apparently is very profitable terms.
• 60.5 du/ac, with 1.68 parking spaces/dwelling unit. See unit & parking breakdown here. Plans claim they are in transit area and so use the smaller numbers for parking -- we need to correct them on this issue
• Condos, mix of 1-story flats and 2-story lofts. The flats range from 930sqft to 1315 sqft.
• Split into 2 buildings (see layout):
  • Building A -- 401 River Oaks Parkway (western half):
    5-stories (75 feet) of condos wrapped around a core parking structure. (see elevation diagram)
  • Building B -- 405 River Oaks Parkway (eastern half):
    4-stories (60 feet) of condos over an underground parking level. (see elevation diagram)
    In front of Bldg B will be a drop-off and entry, see this elevation diagram.
• Setback from Building A to western lot line is 43 feet. Setback from Building B to River Oaks Parkway is 34 feet at minimum.
• Setback from Building B to Parkside lot line is 57 feet. Setback from Building B to River Oaks Parkway is 65 feet.
• Buildings are surrounded by an access road and guest/townhome parkingm with landscaping. Lots of parking along the backside by the creek
• Architecture looks urban-modern, see the design sketch.