S.J. drops top site for homeless housing

Lot is part of dairy farm donated to city as parkland more than six decades ago

San Jose officials have dropped their top choice for a new tinyhome community for formerly homeless residents from consideration.

The move came just two days after city leaders decided to fasttrack

a $17 million plan to build the homes and following a threat of a lawsuit against the city if it went ahead with that particular site.

The site — one of four properties chosen by city officials as ideal locations for the tiny home communities — is on a 1.67-acre overflow parking lot at Emma Prusch Farm

Park in East San Jose.

The lot is part of a former 87acre dairy farm that Emma Prusch donated to the city as parkland more than six decades ago. It is deed-restricted, requires an election to permanently change its land use designation and is used by the park foundation to host events to financially support programs in the park’s barn, two community gardens and plant science center.

Despite a laundry list of clear barriers that could prevent the city from turning the site into a tinyhome community, city officials said they were unaware of the deed restriction until Thursday.

“We’re trying to fly the plane as we build it and move extremely fast during this public health crisis to try and save lives,” Ragan Henninger, the city’s deputy director of housing, said in an interview Friday. “Were putting stuff before the council in a very quick way, but we’ll do our due diligence as we did with the Emma Prusch Park.”

Hoping to take advantage of newly relaxed state environmental review regulations, the City Council unanimously voted Tuesday to set aside $17 million to build up to 500 modular and prefabricated homes on public and private properties for homeless residents who have tested positive for COVID-19 and other residents who may live in overcrowded homes and are unable to self-quarantine. The city is aiming to get the first site up in early May, according to Henniger, who called it a “pretty tall order.”

City officials had identified two potential publiclyowned sites — the lot at Emma Prusch Farm Park and a 2.5-acre site at Monterey and Bernal roads — as their top priorities. The city also is working with two private property owners to negotiate lease agreements for a site at 2347 First St. and another off of Hellyer Avenue in south San Jose.

Advocates for the park said they were both blindsided when they heard that the lot was identified as the city’s top choice to place the housing units. In short order, they began reaching out to the mayor and council about their concerns and started contacting attorneys to prepare to fight the city’s decision.

“I know this is a very stressful time for everybody, but we’re just not going

to lay down,” Sharon McCray, president of the Prusch Farm Park Foundation, said before the city reversed its decision.

When Emma Prusch signed the deed to the city in June 1962, she specified that the city “will make said park a place of relaxation, recreation and enjoyment for the people of the city of San Jose” and aim to give the park a “rural county character and atmosphere.”

On top of the deed, the city’s charter states that city officials can change the use of a public park only for up to three years but then would be required to have an election and gain majority support from registered voters to permanently change the land use.

Upon realizing the limitations, city officials along with Mayor Sam Liccardo realized that the property no longer would be an ideal location for one of

the housing communities.

“It didn’t make a lot of sense to spend a bunch of money on something that would only last three years,” Liccardo said, adding that he hoped that the units could remain in place for 10-15 years.

San Jose has touted itself as a city that went beyond state requirements to maintain a transparent and open government — which states agendas and coinciding documents must be posted at least 72 hours in advance of a public meeting — and made most documents available 10 days beforehand.

But leveraging an order issued by Gov. Gavin Newsom to loosen the state’s sunshine laws during the coronavirus pandemic, San Jose’s City Council unanimously voted last month to waive the requirement that city documents must be posted 72 hours in advance of a public meeting if they relate

to the coronavirus outbreak.

As a result, the documents regarding the $17million allocation for tiny homes — and the city’s list of top sites under consideration to put said the homes — were only made public Monday, just 24 hours before the meeting.

Representatives from the nonprofit organizations that operate out of the Emma Prusch Farm Park said the city never sought input from them before naming part of the park the top site for the homeless housing units.

Jean Dresden, executive director of San Jose Parks Advocates, said she was concerned that the city could be using its emergency declaration for the growing pandemic to “bypass important community outreach and processes.”

“I’d hate to think this is just the first of many decisions being pushed through under the aegis of the

COVID emergency when in fact they are longstanding projects that are worthy of the appropriate community outreach,” Dresden said.

The city’s first two tinyhome communities for homeless residents, which both were approved more than two years ago, were both significantly delayed amid lengthy environmental reviews and site and lease negotiation issues. The city opened its first community of 40 tiny homes in February on a Valley Transportation Authority site leased by the city on Mabury Road near Coyote Creek, but the second one is still under construction.

Liccardo said the city was not trying to ignore community input, but the state’s sudden loosening of regulations that have delayed similar projects over the years was “an opportunity that we should not take lightly.”

“It’s not a secret that

we’ve had a mighty challenge getting housing built for our homeless residents,” he said. “And now we’re dealing with two crisis — a pandemic and a homeless crisis — and when this pandemic is over, we’ll still have a homeless crisis. So we better do everything we can do address both these crises when we can.”

The city plans to issue a request for proposals next week to find a builder for the new tiny home units, according to Liccardo. Because the city declared an emergency shelter crisis because of the coronavirus outbreak, the council will not be required to approve the city manager’s chosen builder nor the sites where the units will go up.

Still, Liccardo promises that the council “will continue to take input through the council hearing and “vet everything very publicly before anyone has moved forward with anything on any particular site.”