The last walnut orchard remains a development hotbed
“We’re just a group of active residents who come together when we feel we can help find the least impactful and most beneficial way for a project this size to go forward. We’re not going to give up our game plan (for the July 24 public hearing) because we’re tired of Grosvenor knowing our strategy” — Former Los Gatos mayor and longtime resident Sandy Decker
LOS GATOS >> The North 40 roller coaster ride will continue next week when the Los Gatos Town Council holds another public hearing to tackle unfinished business.
The property is home to the last walnut orchard in Los Gatos. Approximately 33 acres of the site are owned by the Yuki family and controlled by international developer Grosvenor Americas.
Grosvenor has partnered with Summer Hill Homes in a bid to build 320 homes—270 of them at market rate—and more than 66,000 square feet of retail/commercial space on nearly half of the property.
If the project proceeds, it would mark the end of an era in what was once an agricultural stronghold for the state.
Many Los Gatos residents are determined to stop that, however, and have taken up the fight for the future of their town in one of the hottest growth market in the country.
The town council rejected the North 40 project last September and the developers sued the town. Last month, Superior Court Judge Drew Takaichi ruled the town was wrong and must reconsider its decision. He said if the town rejects the proposal again it must do so for objective, not subjective reasons.
Though the opposition has been very local, not everyone is against the plan. Los Gatos Community Alliance member and 45-year resident Jak Van Nada has endorsed it since meeting with developers.
“I think the developers are honest people and are really working to make things work for the town and the development,” said Van Nada, who studied their plan. “When you have a development like this you have to trust them, although you do have to watch them. Where I feel the town and residents have made a mistake is they haven’t worked with the developer and they don’t understand the complexities of the law.”
The state’s complex housing laws have played a significant role in the development’s design. When details of the development plan were revealed, it became apparent to some people that the market rate housing would not necessarily be affordable housing.
“It’s not affordable in the way we think of affordability,” Van Nada said. “It’s high-density housing, and that’s what the state wants.”
Van Nada said he’s also prepared to “go along” with the project’s traffic study. “The traffic will be mitigated. It will be better than it is today, even without the development,” he said.
The developers have proposed spending more than $5 million on transportation improvements they say will solve several of the town’s traffic deficiencies. The North 40 is also expected to generate more than $12 million in traffic impact fees.
The proposed development was also endorsed by the Los Gatos Union School District board of trustees after an agreement was reached to pay the district $23,500 for each market-rate home built at the North 40. The developers also have the option of purchasing two acres to build a new neighboring school. The North 40, the developers say, can’t accommodate a school because of its proximity to highways 17 and 85.
While the school agreement quieted some opposition, former mayor and longtime resident Sandy Decker cites “a couple hundred” people who remain against it.
“We’re just a group of active residents who come together when we feel we can help find the least impactful and most beneficial way for a project this size to go forward,” Decker said.
“We’re not going to give up our game plan (for the July 24 public hearing) because we’re tired of Grosvenor knowing our strategy.”
Decker moved to Los Gatos in 1969, was appointed to the planning commission in 1994, elected to the town council for one term in 2000 and served as mayor in 2004. In recent years, she has campaigned against the Templar gun store and opposed both the hillside development and new Netflix headquarters on Albright Way.
Decker explained her stance on the North 40.
“This is not NIMBYism. We were ready to use that property to meet the town’s needs,” Decker said. “We knew it was going to be developed, and we were looking forward to having it meet neighborhood serving needs for housing and the community.”
Forty-year resident Susan Buxton agrees. “The thing that upset me the most is they didn’t use our below market price guidelines. The North 40 Specific Plan says we’d follow those guidelines.”
The specific plan says, “Affordable housing (below market price housing) requirements shall be met pursuant to Town Code.” The code says developers of 101 housing units or more shall provide a minimum number of below market price units equal to 20 percent of the fair market value rate units. Often as not, the below market units are part of a single-family housing subdivision and can be purchased.
Buxton called the plan to build 49 rental apartments at the North 40 site for very low-income seniors “flawed.”
“Its going to be difficult to provide those seniors with the services they need,” Buxton said. “They’re too removed from senior services at the civic center.”
The senior housing is a burr in the side of Marchmont Drive resident Barbara Dodson, too. Dodson, who was not available for an interview, personally hired Oakland attorney Leila Moncharsh to find out if the 49 senior apartments comply with state law.
“State policy requires that for housing to qualify as ‘senior housing,’ it needs to provide accessibility, a special living environment and services that accommodate seniors,” Moncharsh wrote in an email to the town council.
Moncharsh said Dodson visited the North 40 to research the “claim made by Eden Housing that there would be easy walkability to goods and services.” Eden Housing would be responsible for managing the units, under the developers’ plan.
“It became immediately apparent that seniors, especially those with any disability … would be unable to walk anywhere near necessary goods and services that they could secure,” Moncharsh wrote. “The roadways are not safe, especially in crossing intersections, and the goods and services are too remote from the project site.”
Eden Housing president Linda Mandolini explained, “We’re not worried about this location. If the seniors are having problems getting groceries, we will help them. We work with community service groups, and we even have a ‘how to take a bus’ class or we can call paratransit for them.”
Mandolini said 35 people have already joined the “interest list” for the senior apartments, 12 of whom are Los Gatos residents. She said the need for senior housing is great and was identified by the town as its highest housing priority.
“What’s really important is the town identified very low-income seniors as an unmet need. Not only are we meeting the town’s requirements, we’re exceeding them,” Mandolini said. “Grosvenor and SummerHill are giving us the site and subsidies to build the senior apartments, so it’s a substantial community benefit. It’s a gift for all of us. I feel like that’s been lost in the discussion.”
By way of example, Mandolini said that Eden has “more than 250 seniors who have been on a waiting list for the Cambrian Apartments (in San Jose) since 2009.”
Mandolini said the proposed development “stands as is,” as do the prior school and traffic funding commitments.
The North 40 project site has been in the Yuki family since the 1940s. Today, Ed Morimoto has become the face of the family at public hearings.
“Many of us live in homes that were only farmland when my family first arrived here 75 years ago,” Morimoto said in April 2016. “How vibrant would Los Gatos be without (highways) 17 and 85? Roads (were) carved out of our orchard to connect us to our jobs and to bring customers to our businesses. Isn’t it possible—just possible— that thoughtful, selective use of higher density over our traditional sprawling, car-centric approach just might give us a better chance of preserving our quality of life?”
Morimoto’s LinkedIn profile describes him as an “occasional farmer, frequent businessperson, perpetual nerd.” He’s a Stanford graduate with an MBA from Columbia University and has been the director of Yuki Farms since April 2012.
The North 40 project lead is Don Capobres, who was a senior vice president of development at Grosvenor Americas when the North 40 process began some eight years ago. About 16 months ago, Capobres left Grosvenor to form Harmonie Park Development, which is colocated in Los Gatos and Plymouth, Michigan. He continues to oversee the North 40 along with former SummerHill Homes vice president of development Wendi Baker, who joined Harmonie Park three months ago.
The company’s website says it specializes in developments for “high barrier to entry communities.”
The next round of North 40 debate starts Monday, July 24. Mayor Marico Sayoc said the Aug. 1 town council meeting has also been set aside for North 40 deliberations.
Monday’s public hearing starts 6 p.m. at Los Gatos Town Hall, 110 E. Main St..