A 32-unit townhome proposal in Foster City has sparked a familiar debate among residents about the need for housing versus anticipated impacts to traffic, schools and infrastructure.
The townhomes are being proposed for a 1.35-acre site at 1601 Beach Park Blvd. and they’d be spread throughout six three-story buildings. Per the city’s housing policy, 20 percent of the units — in this case six units — must be affordable. The site was previously home to a church and preschool, but has been vacant for a decade. The surrounding neighborhood is a mix of single-family homes, townhomes, apartment buildings and a shopping center.
A general plan amendment and rezone of the site from a public facility use to a residential use is required before the project can move forward. The current zoning is technically called “public and semi public” and examples of allowable uses include religious institutions, government offices or fire and police facilities.
About 15 residents weighed in on the proposal at a meeting April 15, and almost all of them expressed concerns about the aforementioned impacts — traffic congestion being the primary concern — as well as building height and density.
The council’s discussion largely focused on the proposed change in land use. While no action was taken at the meeting, Mayor Sam Hindi, Vice Mayor Herb Perez and Councilwoman Richa Awasthi favored the land use change to allow for the development of homes while Councilwoman Catherine Mahanpour and Councilman Sanjay Gehani were not comfortable with rezoning the site for residential uses, at least not at this time.
“I would not be in favor of changing the land use at this point in time and I’d prefer to see something more for the community benefit than housing,” Mahanpour said, according to video of the meeting, She added that she’d like to see an early childhood education center, for example, on the property.
Gehani said Foster City has already built a sufficient amount of housing and building more of it would do little to help the affordability crisis.
“We’re in the top 5% [in terms of housing production among California cities] so anyone who comes here and tells you we’re obstructing and we don’t want people to live here — that doesn’t add up,” he said. “It’s a big mistake to think we’re going to build our way out of the housing challenges we have.”
Gehani also suggested the city can’t handle any more housing because its schools are overcrowded.
Recommended for you
Perez, on the other hand, suggested more housing is needed, though he has concerns with the townhome proposal as is.
“I won’t say that I’m in full cloth agreement with the plans I saw today because I can’t say that I am, but I’m certainly in favor of changing it from a non-use, which is public facilities, to a use that is applicable,” he said. “That leaves us with two choices: commercial, which means a shopping center or strip mall or gas station; or residential. We don’t need another strip center, but we certainly do seem to hear continually that we need some form of housing.”
Awasthi suggested housing is the only feasible use for the site, though she also has concerns about the townhome proposal, specifically its density.
“This site as we all know is privately owned and not owned by the city so that really limits what can be done with it,” she said. “It has been vacant and underutilized for over a decade. Other uses have not been possible or have not been successful for over 10 years. I also acknowledge the need for housing and for people to be able to live and work here.”
Resident Eva Hess, who spoke during public comment, felt the rezone would deprive the city of a valuable amenity.
“The general plan states that all Foster City residents are to have amenities such as churches, schools, green areas, parks, shops etc. within walking distance of their neighborhood,” she said. “This rezoning would eliminate an amenity and it would create more demand for amenities that are being taken away. Do you see how this plan creates an imbalance that negatively affects all residents?”
A minority of speakers, including high school teacher Ethan Cheeves, did support the rezone, citing the housing crisis and the benefit that below-market-rate units would provide.
“This particular housing project would potentially have several units that are below market rate, which is one of the only hopes that people on a teacher’s salary have for living in a community like this,” he said. “This redevelopment affords people who don’t live here and who are renters or who own but want to live closer the opportunity to do so. And it’s very easy and convenient for people who have a chair when the music stops to say the housing crisis is not my problem. … This is an opportunity for the city not only to help alleviate [the crisis], but also for people who would like to become members of the community to join it and there aren’t many like that.”
@JR No, community design is not the problem, it’s a never ending need for tech workers from around the world to locate on a narrow Peninsula. Let never assure you of one thing, other than a token amount of affordable housing you can count on one hand, you will not be able to afford a unit in this proposed development. We cannot build our way out of this tech driven situation, even if the high density housing was 10 stories tall.
It is a shame that all over the peninsula our neighborhoods are being destroyed thoughtlessly. I agree with Eva Hess. This type of development "creates an imbalance that negatively affects all residents". In San Carlos there are similar efforts underway driven by developers who care only about the bottom line. If we as residents don't unite to voice our concerns, who will? We have a petition in change.org voicing our concerns for the Black Mountain property development: https://www.change.org/p/san-carlos-rethink-black-mountain. Please support it, as we support our neighbors to help save our unique peninsula communities.
I'm disappointed to see such opposition to just 32 townhomes. We need to build more housing near the tens of thousands of jobs that were created in the county recently. Local infrastructure and traffic concerns are valid but the council has the ability to mitigate those. That's not a reason to not approve housing. Increasing traffic and income inequality due to out-of-county commuters traveling to jobs near Foster City, or displacing local residents, is NOT within the control of the council and IS a reason to approve more local housing.
@AllAreWelcome What you are probably not aware of is that Foster City has been building and building high density housing. We are in the top 5% in our state for new housing. We gave up any chance at a high school because the land was sold for senior housing. We’ve lost 2 1/2 Shopping centers for housing and an elementary school. Why should I sacrifice my quality of life so that Facebook can hire more workers from foreign countries? That’s a pretty twisted set of priorities.
This proposed high density housing complex should be called “Sardine Shores” because of how packed in they’d be! There are townhouses across the street encompassing 14 acres for 142 units. This comes out ton10 units per acre. This new proposal wants to build 32 units on 1.35 acres! Ridiculous! Very little parking, no open space, three stories tall, or blimey other housing in the neighborhood.
What the article doesn’t tell us is that the church/school facility has been vacant for ten years due to the owner turning down churches wanting to lease the facility. This shows bad faith. Foster City needs church space, needs preschool space, needs open space.
The 20% affordable housing sounds good on paper, but even at this horrendous high density, that’s only 6 units. No planning commission would okay this plan as is. A more realistic number of units would be 12, yielding a meager 2 affordable housing units. The market rate for the rest would be $1.2M plus, hardly affordable.
This is a bad idea and one had to wonder why the usual same three council members would even entertain it? The only constant with these three is ignoring their constituents. More bad faith.
@Hikertom I t all comes down to whether the project should fits into the existing neighborhood. This project most emphatically does not. Typical Foster City single family home parcels are .17, .18 of an acre, or around 4000 sq. ft. Not .1 as you are suggesting. I showed you the density of the townhomes across the street. Should these not make for precedent in new housing projects? Just as 1 and 2 story structures are the norm, how can a 3 story high density development be justified.
This all assumes this parcel should be rezoned from public use at all. The neighbors have spoken, the vast majority want to see this stay zoned for a church or pre-school.
The land owner called this phase 2, never mind that the first phase was built 20 years ago. What are these, Egyptian pyramids?
Any developer has an obligation to propose projects that fit in the neighborhood. Ditto city leadership. They have failed us.
@ Jeff Regan - appreciate your concern about character, but that's the thinking that created a city where no teacher can afford to live. Not every household needs a 2,000sf single family detached home. My wife and I would love to be able to afford an 800-1,000sf townhouse in FC. And then I wouldn't have to commute across the bridge. If I'm not mistaken there are already apartments a block down the road too. Townhomes don't seem out of character with apartment buildings.
Interesting how the quotes a reporter uses can color a story.... Awasthi: actual words "I'm not ok with the density as it is currently proposed" & "the rezoning & the density should be in alignment with the surrounding neighborhood"
Keep the discussion civilized. Absolutely NO
personal attacks or insults directed toward writers, nor others who
make comments. Keep it clean. Please avoid obscene, vulgar, lewd,
racist or sexually-oriented language. Don't threaten. Threats of harming another
person will not be tolerated. Be truthful. Don't knowingly lie about anyone
or anything. Be proactive. Use the 'Report' link on
each comment to let us know of abusive posts. PLEASE TURN OFF YOUR CAPS LOCK. Anyone violating these rules will be issued a
warning. After the warning, comment privileges can be
revoked.
Please purchase a Premium Subscription to continue reading.
To continue, please log in, or sign up for a new account.
We offer one free story view per month. If you register for an account, you will get two additional story views. After those three total views, we ask that you support us with a subscription.
A subscription to our digital content is so much more than just access to our valuable content. It means you’re helping to support a local community institution that has, from its very start, supported the betterment of our society. Thank you very much!
(9) comments
@JR No, community design is not the problem, it’s a never ending need for tech workers from around the world to locate on a narrow Peninsula. Let never assure you of one thing, other than a token amount of affordable housing you can count on one hand, you will not be able to afford a unit in this proposed development. We cannot build our way out of this tech driven situation, even if the high density housing was 10 stories tall.
It is a shame that all over the peninsula our neighborhoods are being destroyed thoughtlessly. I agree with Eva Hess. This type of development "creates an imbalance that negatively affects all residents". In San Carlos there are similar efforts underway driven by developers who care only about the bottom line. If we as residents don't unite to voice our concerns, who will? We have a petition in change.org voicing our concerns for the Black Mountain property development: https://www.change.org/p/san-carlos-rethink-black-mountain. Please support it, as we support our neighbors to help save our unique peninsula communities.
I'm disappointed to see such opposition to just 32 townhomes. We need to build more housing near the tens of thousands of jobs that were created in the county recently. Local infrastructure and traffic concerns are valid but the council has the ability to mitigate those. That's not a reason to not approve housing. Increasing traffic and income inequality due to out-of-county commuters traveling to jobs near Foster City, or displacing local residents, is NOT within the control of the council and IS a reason to approve more local housing.
@AllAreWelcome What you are probably not aware of is that Foster City has been building and building high density housing. We are in the top 5% in our state for new housing. We gave up any chance at a high school because the land was sold for senior housing. We’ve lost 2 1/2 Shopping centers for housing and an elementary school. Why should I sacrifice my quality of life so that Facebook can hire more workers from foreign countries? That’s a pretty twisted set of priorities.
This proposed high density housing complex should be called “Sardine Shores” because of how packed in they’d be! There are townhouses across the street encompassing 14 acres for 142 units. This comes out ton10 units per acre. This new proposal wants to build 32 units on 1.35 acres! Ridiculous! Very little parking, no open space, three stories tall, or blimey other housing in the neighborhood.
What the article doesn’t tell us is that the church/school facility has been vacant for ten years due to the owner turning down churches wanting to lease the facility. This shows bad faith. Foster City needs church space, needs preschool space, needs open space.
The 20% affordable housing sounds good on paper, but even at this horrendous high density, that’s only 6 units. No planning commission would okay this plan as is. A more realistic number of units would be 12, yielding a meager 2 affordable housing units. The market rate for the rest would be $1.2M plus, hardly affordable.
This is a bad idea and one had to wonder why the usual same three council members would even entertain it? The only constant with these three is ignoring their constituents. More bad faith.
A single family detached house could easily be built on a tenth of an acre. It is not unreasonable to get 20 or 30 townhouses on an acre.
@Hikertom I t all comes down to whether the project should fits into the existing neighborhood. This project most emphatically does not. Typical Foster City single family home parcels are .17, .18 of an acre, or around 4000 sq. ft. Not .1 as you are suggesting. I showed you the density of the townhomes across the street. Should these not make for precedent in new housing projects? Just as 1 and 2 story structures are the norm, how can a 3 story high density development be justified.
This all assumes this parcel should be rezoned from public use at all. The neighbors have spoken, the vast majority want to see this stay zoned for a church or pre-school.
The land owner called this phase 2, never mind that the first phase was built 20 years ago. What are these, Egyptian pyramids?
Any developer has an obligation to propose projects that fit in the neighborhood. Ditto city leadership. They have failed us.
@ Jeff Regan - appreciate your concern about character, but that's the thinking that created a city where no teacher can afford to live. Not every household needs a 2,000sf single family detached home. My wife and I would love to be able to afford an 800-1,000sf townhouse in FC. And then I wouldn't have to commute across the bridge. If I'm not mistaken there are already apartments a block down the road too. Townhomes don't seem out of character with apartment buildings.
Interesting how the quotes a reporter uses can color a story.... Awasthi: actual words "I'm not ok with the density as it is currently proposed" & "the rezoning & the density should be in alignment with the surrounding neighborhood"
Welcome to the discussion.
Log In
Keep the discussion civilized. Absolutely NO personal attacks or insults directed toward writers, nor others who make comments.
Keep it clean. Please avoid obscene, vulgar, lewd, racist or sexually-oriented language.
Don't threaten. Threats of harming another person will not be tolerated.
Be truthful. Don't knowingly lie about anyone or anything.
Be proactive. Use the 'Report' link on each comment to let us know of abusive posts.
PLEASE TURN OFF YOUR CAPS LOCK.
Anyone violating these rules will be issued a warning. After the warning, comment privileges can be revoked.