A single-family home and two duplexes will be torn down to make way for seven detached single-family homes at 523 E. Homestead Road.
The decision came after the Sunnyvale mayor and one other city council member appealed the Sunnyvale Planning Commission’s vote to deny the project.
The planning commission weighed in on the project in June and felt the project should be redesigned with eight units to meet the General Plan policy for minimum density, which would also trigger the requirement for a below-market-rate (BMR) unit.
Mayor Jim Griffith, in his first planning commission appeal in his four years on the council, called the decision an “egregious case of designing from the dais.” He added that there was no previous discussion of having eight units and that pursuing an additional $500,000 of affordable housing is “well beyond the purview of the planning commission.”
“Such big-picture policy decisions are exclusively the purview of the city council, and they have no place in the planning commission’s review of the specifics of an application and its impacts on the surrounding neighborhood,” Griffith wrote in his appeal letter.
The project had gone through three redesigns. The original proposal was for 11 units, but was trimmed down to nine, before it was trimmed even further to seven to meet concerns of neighbors and the commission.
Staff reported the nine-unit proposal would have resulted in a tight lot configuration with setback deviations, and raised concerns regarding trash and recycling pick-up.
The new layout has no deviations from development standards, such as setbacks and lot coverage.
“While the proposed density is less than the minimum required, the small lot single-family development appropriately transitions density with adjacent single-family homes to the north and east and multi-family homes to the west and south,” city staff reported to the council.
The city council agreed at its meeting July 29, and voted to grant the appeal and approve the project.
Councilman Gustav Larsson said he felt the project would fit well with the surrounding neighborhoods and that the BMR policy should not be a deciding factor for the planning commission when approving or denying a project.
“My view is that the BMR policy we have is not a driver for decision making yes or no on a project. Instead, it’s more of something that we calculate or look at once we decided that a project is compatible with a neighborhood or compatible with the General Plan and the zoning code,” Larsson said during the meeting. “There’s nothing in the policy that says we can’t have a project that just has seven units, even though that’s just below the threshold.”
Concerns about possibly needing an additional traffic light were dismissed during discussion.
City staff consulted with the public works department at the planning commission’s request. To determine whether a signal is warranted at a location, the city would need to conduct a signal warrant analysis based on criteria from the Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices. However, based on the low street volumes at this intersection, the public works department reported that it would not likely meet the criteria for the installation of a signal.
Staff also consulted with the city of Cupertino, which maintains the signals on Homestead Road. Cupertino stated it would not likely support installation of a signal due to the close proximity to the signal at Homestead Road and Blue Jay Drive, which is located one block to the west.
The applicant, S&S Construction, is proposing to have homes with a Spanish-style design that will internally face a new private drive with a turnaround and sidewalks. Cars and pedestrians will have direct access off of Canary Drive. Each home will have five bedrooms and will range between 2,588 square feet and 2,755 square feet.
