Belmont Planning Commission OKs Firehouse Square

Sares Regis is proposing 15 market-rate townhomes and MidPen will construct, own and operate 66 affordable units for rent, making the proposal more than 80% affordable. The MidPen portion includes a mix of studios as well as one-bedroom, two-bedroom and three-bedroom units reserved for those earning between 30% and 80% of area median income, or $30,800 to $82,200 a year. Residents will be chosen by a lottery system and preference will be given to those who live and work in Belmont.

The architecture will remain the same since the last round of community meetings in 2014 — the MidPen building will be in the Spanish style, the townhomes in the craftsman style and the firehouse facade will be preserved. During the meeting, one speaker expressed disappointment that only the façade of the old firehouse was being preserved, but Community Development Director Carlos De Melo said the building would collapse if it were to be relocated.

Commissioners celebrated the influx of affordable housing and praised the development’s architecture.

“With respect to design, I think it’s extremely attractive, I love that it incorporates the firehouse elements, the other side of the project, the townhomes with the craftsman details — I think that’s very attractive and a tremendous improvement over what is there now,” said Commissioner Caroline Pyrz.

Those who spoke during public comment were also eager to see the project site transformed after being vacant for as long as many can remember.

“We’ve come up with a better project somehow even though it’s been the most frustrating, almost close to 20 years that we’ve sat with this blight basically,” said Mary Morrissey Parden, president of the Belmont Chamber of Commerce. “I cannot even express to you my delight at what we’re seeing. I hope it will happen soon.”

The apartment building will be four-stories tall with 4,000 square feet of ground-level retail and the townhomes will be two stories. There will be open space between the two buildings, some of it publically accessible, and a subterranean garage for the apartments can accommodate 47 cars while each of the townhomes will have a two-car garage.

The reduced parking for the MidPen development is possible because of the state density bonus law, which allows affordable housing near transit to include just a half of a parking space per unit. But the MidPen development will include somewhat more parking than that — 0.7 spaces per unit.

The parking reduction left many residents, including parishioners of the adjacent Good Shepherd Episcopal Church, worried the area will become over-parked once Firehouse Square residents move in, and some are also concerned there is no dedicated parking for the project’s retail space.

“I support affordable housing, but what I can’t support is having retail space with no parking of its own,” said John Stockman. “You have so many different things happening in that little area, especially on Sundays you have the farmers’ market and the churchgoing, people shopping at the shopping center and parking is a premium, especially amongst a lot of the residents there.”

Serena Ip, project manager at MidPen, said the lottery system for prospective residents will alternate between two lists — one for those who drive and the other for those who select a “no-vehicle” preference — and the nonprofit is also proposing a parking management plan that includes free SamTrans passes for residents.

Chair Thomas McCune appeared convinced that those programs would help address the parking concerns and also said the project’s proximity to Safeway and Walgreens would enable at least some residents to live without a car.

“People can live quite comfortably in these places with no car if they can get to the drugstore and the supermarket,” he said. “And I think with MidPen’s discussion about vetting people on the basis of car or no car, while I’m concerned about the [parking] ratio, I think it will work.”

The project also seeks to reconfigure the parking lot along Fifth Avenue so that cars will have to back into parking spaces, what’s called reversed-in angled parking. Such a configuration is meant to improve safety for cyclists because drivers would ostensibly be able to see better when exiting a parking space.

Several commissioners felt such a change was not worth depriving the neighborhood of 16 parking spaces. The lot currently accommodates 52 cars and the reverse-in configuration would mean only 36 could park there.

Various site improvements for the project include the undergrounding of overhead power lines on Fifth Avenue from O’Neill Avenue to Broadway and down to Civic Lane, new street lighting and sidewalk upgrades.

The City Council will consider the project and the Planning Commission’s recommendations at its May 28 meeting.

zachary@smdailyjournal.com

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