Housing at San Mateo corporation yard may not work

Originally zoned for light industrial uses, a rezoning of the site for transit-oriented development as part of the 2005 San Mateo Rail Corridor Transit-Oriented Development Plan spurred a search for a new location for the site so its location near State Route 92 and other major city thoroughfares could be leveraged for new development, according to a staff report.

In recent years as officials have considered other sites for the Corp Yard, much-needed improvements to its aging facilities have been postponed, said Underwood. And after at least three other sites have been deemed infeasible alternatives, Underwood asked the City Council for the green light to keep the Corp Yard where it is and begin a master planning effort to coordinate improvements, such as new above-ground storage tanks and upgrading warehouses to accommodate office space for employees who have been working out of a trailer in recent years.

“There’s really a lot of work that needs to be done there and improve things for the employees that work out of this site,” he said, according to a video of the meeting.

Though officials considered a city-owned property on Detroit Drive near the city’s wastewater treatment plant, it was nixed from the list of possible alternatives once the site was pegged for a new treatment plant, said Underwood. He added city and San Mateo County officials were once in talks about a possible shared use agreement including the site and a property off Tower Road just outside the city limits, but the arrangement would have required construction of a new facility and would have placed the Corp Yard farther away from work sites.

The last option officials considered was moving Parks and Recreation employees and operations to the maintenance area at the Poplar Creek Golf Course and finding another location for the remaining services. But when they found the area wasn’t large enough to accommodate both the golf and Parks and Recreation services and no other site for the remaining services could be identified, they deemed that idea infeasible as well.

By crafting a master plan for the Corp Yard in its current location, Underwood said officials could consider ways to more efficiently store equipment and provide working space for the some 85 employees who work there, adding there may be an opportunity to include housing on space that is not used by maintenance operations.

Though Mayor Rick Bonilla said he would like to see if up to 2 acres of the site could be dedicated to housing, City Manager Larry Patterson said he did not expect any part of the site that’s not used for maintenance services to be large.

Acknowledging the prime location of the Corp Yard, Deputy Mayor Diane Papan said she felt city staff exhausted the study of any available sites in San Mateo, but wondered if any services could have been located at the Detroit Drive site. Because the site would have been too small to include both the wastewater treatment plant and maintenance services, the city would have had to purchase more land there and, in turn, the endeavor would have become much more expensive, said Underwood.

Patterson added officials worked with a real estate broker to see if a deal could be made in which a developer hoping to build a residential project on the site could fund the relocation of the Corp Yard to another San Mateo site, but no such opportunity presented itself.

Though his fellow councilmembers agreed the Corp Yard’s current site was likely the most fitting, Councilman Joe Goethals was hesitant to move forward with making zoning changes for the site, noting he would like to do more research and explore the opportunity costs of keeping it there.

“I’d like to explore some other things before we do that and see what options we might be excluding ourselves from by going down this path,” he said.

Noting city staff thoroughly studied alternatives for the site, Councilman Eric Rodriguez said he was ready to authorize a master planning effort for the Corp Yard to maintain its strategic location for services in the future. Though he acknowledged finding sites where housing can be built is very important, Rodriguez was reluctant to move the Corp Yard to a less ideal location and compromise its ability to provide expanded services in the future.

“I don’t want to be attempting to solve a problem while we’re creating a bigger problem that might bind us in the future,” he said. “I’m all supportive of looking to find opportunities for housing, but I just don’t see it here as the right way to go.”

anna@smdailyjournal.com

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