40 new homes approved for school district property
District set to use additional revenue of about $700K to fund various services
A block of 40 new singlefamily homes is set to replace two outdated school district buildings in west San Jose, marking the second time in the past month that a San Jose district has made moves to convert its land into housing to generate more revenue.
The San Jose City Council on March 23 unanimously approved Campbell Union High School District’s plan to build the new homes and a private street on a 6-acre plot of district-owned property at 3235 Union Ave.
San Jose-based developer Robson Homes will build the homes on a narrow strip of land between Camden Postsecondary School on Camden Avenue and the district’s main building on Union Avenue. Two maintenance buildings currently on the site will be demolished to make way for the new neighborhood.
“It’s been a pleasure to work with the school district, and we look forward to offering new homes in the Camden community,” Mary Gourlay of Robson Homes wrote in an email.
Campbell Union High Superintendent Robert Bravo estimates that the housing development will generate about $700,000 in additional revenue annually for student programs, including a plan to strengthen the district’s counseling offerings.
“It’s definitely welcome,” Bravo said about the anticipated revenue stream. “We were looking for a way where we could increase revenue without increasing taxation, and our properties were one of the few options available to us.”
The move comes less than a month after the San Jose City Council also approved the rezoning of a 2.7-acre plot of land owned by the Cambrian School District at 1975 Cambrianna Drive to pave the way for 35 new housing units. Cambrian School District officials estimate that the new housing, which will also be constructed by Robson Homes, will generate about $500,000 a year for student programs.
Similar to Cambrian, Campbell Union High School District has been studying the potential of repurposing underutilized land as a way to earn additional revenue for educational services for nearly four years.
The City Council in late 2018 approved the rezoning of Campbell Union High’s property off of Union Avenue, and then in February 2020, Robson Homes submitted its initial plans for approval.
According to the project plans, the homes will be two stories tall and about 3,000 square feet in size. Most of the homes will have four bedrooms, 31/2 baths and a two-car garage. About half of the home will feature an accessory dwelling unit above the detached garage that homeowners can rent out.
The site is bordered by a residential neighborhood to the north, the Campbell Union High School District office to the east, the Camden Community Center and a single-family residential neighborhood to the south and the Campbell Union High School District corporation yard to the west.
The community’s private street, which will feature a park strip in the middle, will connect to Union Avenue using an existing driveway on the eastern end of the neighborhood and will end with a cul-de-sac at the western end. The development will be governed by a homeowners association, which would be responsible for the maintenance and upkeep of the private street, alley and common areas, according to plans.
San Jose’s general plan stipulates that “quasipublic” land such as land owned by school districts or churches should not be converted to other uses except for extremely unique circumstances. To make such a conversion, school districts must go through a yearslong approval and permitting process.
San Jose city staffers are currently developing a universal framework for handling requests for such types of land conversions, which Mayor Sam Liccardo has been asking for since the City Council initially approved Campbell Union High’s land conversion in 2018. Consideration of such policy is expected at a City Council meeting sometime this fall.
“Rather than considering them in a sporadic, uncoordinated way, we ought to be transparent and have a very principled approach for deciding when the conversion of public land obligation makes sense for the community and we should apply those rules consistently,” Liccardo said in a recent interview.