By BRADEN CARTWRIGHT
Daily Post Staff Writer
Cities are getting a chance to review some major housing projects amid a housing crisis and a state mandate to build more homes.
These projects, and more in the pipeline, will test councils’ appetite for allowing taller and denser development.
Palo Alto City Council will take a look at a five-story, 75-unit building on a commercial stretch of San Antonio Road on Monday.
233 apartments
On Wednesday, the Mountain View Environmental Planning Commission will consider a permit for a 233-unit, 72-foot building that would replace 42 apartments at 800 E. El Camino Real, on the border with Sunnyvale.
The project would be one of many tall buildings proposed along El Camino in almost every city. It’s on a 3.4-acre site where there are 20 apartment buildings that are one or two stories each.
The developer, Equity Residential, wants to tear down five of the buildings to make room for two large ones, extending back from the street.
The project would include 78 units rented at a below-market rate, and 42 tenants who are displaced would get financial assistance, depending on their income.
The Environmental Planning Commission is also being asked to permit a clubroom and rooftop terrace on the sixth-floor.
On San Antonio Road
In Palo Alto, Saratoga developer Yorke Lee wants to tear down a tutoring office and a spa business to build a complex at 800 and 808 San Antonio Road, between East Charleston Road and Middlefield Road.
Council will give feedback on the proposal before Lee decides whether to submit a formal application to develop the lot.
Council would have to rezone the property to allow for taller and denser buildings. The building would be 60 feet tall, with a courtyard in the middle and two-level underground parking garage that has 141 spaces.
The property is zoned for only 26 units. The city would waive the density rules in exchange for affordable housing: Lee is proposing to restrict 15 of the units at a below-market rate.