The San Jose City Council has unanimously approved the construction of a new six-story, mixed-use affordable housing development in the Willow Glen neighborhood.
The project — dubbed Meridian Apartments — will be located on a 2.09-acre site at 961-971 Meridian Avenue between Fruitdale Avenue and Curci Drive. It will consist of 231 affordable units, two units for property managers and 1,780 square feet of commercial space on the ground floor.
Councilmember Dev Davis, who represents the Willow Glen area, called the project a “sustainable, positive, affordable development that we need right now.”
“This is definitely one of the projects we want moving forward as quickly as possible,” Davis said during Tuesday night’s council meeting.
The units will be a mix of one- to three-bedroom units and will be available to residents earning between 30 to 80% of the area median income — or up to about $73,000 for a single person.
The development, which will include 290 parking spaces, is just a third of a mile from the Fruitdale Lightrail Station and served by at least four bus routes in close proximity. The developer, Santa Clara-based developer ROEM, has promised to provide the tenants with a bike share program and a public transit liaison.
The project is one of 11 developments that the city vowed to devote nearly $100 million to over the next several years. The money will come in part from repayment of loans the city handed out when it had a redevelopment agency and a city housing fund that developers pay into when they build market-rate housing.
A warehouse and two single-story homes, including one that was a candidate to become a city landmark, will be demolished to make room for the project.
Mike Sodergren of the Preservation Action Council of San Jose said the organization supported the development but asked the city council to take historic preservation into greater consideration when it weighs decisions like this moving forward.
“We would like to just see in the future that there is some kind of mitigation — financial mitigation — for other historic property preservation that might result as a result of authorizing these kinds of demolitions,” he said.
