Officials and residents eye Hayward Park apartments in San Mateo

The two buildings the developer Sares Regis has proposed for the site will each reach five stories in height, but only one, a larger building holding 115 apartments and facing Concar Drive on one side, is set to include 232 parking spaces to serve the entire development in two levels of above-ground parking, according to the project’s pre-application, which indicates those spots will only be available to residents of the development.

Though he acknowledged he is typically not supportive of parking, Commissioner John Ebneter echoed the concerns of residents, city staff and his fellow commissioners about the lack of public parking included in the plans. Ebneter noted that residents on the east side of the tracks are not likely to need parking to access the Hayward Park station, but others living west of the tracks might opt not to use it if there is nowhere to park their cars.

Ebneter also acknowledged Caltrain is updating its business plan and projecting ridership to grow from the some 60,000 daily riders to more than 180,000 daily riders in 2040, and advocated for the developer to consider using a mechanized parking system to make spaces available to the public.

“With the tripling of the ridership and the eliminating of parking, I think it will discourage some riders from using the train,” he said, according to a video of the meeting. “I just don’t know how we can take away all of the public parking and still encourage the full use of that station.”

In response to a question from Vice Chair Ellen Mallory about whether the developer considered putting the parking underground, Ken Busch, senior vice president with Sares Regis, said the level at which the ground under the site is saturated with water is relatively high and estimated creating an underground parking space could cost some $100,000 per spot. From the developer’s experience in planning other projects, the ratio of parking spaces to the number of units proposed for the site in the project plans, or 1.2, is a figure the developer’s financing sources typically look for, said Busch. Though the developer is estimating some 50% to 70% of the development’s residents will use public transit to commute to work, Busch expected many to also own cars.

Mallory expressed concerns neighbors of the project have had about Caltrain riders parking on the streets nearby if there isn’t enough park-and-ride parking included on the site. West of the 19th Avenue Park and Fiesta Gardens neighborhoods, the project site is also about a block away from the proposed Passage project, a 961-unit, mixed-use development planned for the 14.5-acre Concar Shopping Center where Trader Joe’s and Ross Dress for Less currently operate, among other stores. Though the Passage project is currently under environmental review, a 73-unit apartment building slated to replace the AAA insurance office building at 1650 S. Delaware St. is starting to take shape after plans for that project were approved in August of 2018.

“I’m worried about the surrounding neighborhoods and cars being pushed into the neighborhoods,” she said. “I think there’s a domino effect there.”

Mallory also shared city staff’s worries that locating the parking under only one of the two buildings could prove to be a challenge for residents traveling from one building to another with heavy items or children.

Commissioners also weighed the buildings’ proximity to the 12-acre, 599-unit Station Park Green development as well as the limited open space and location of a 1,000-square-foot plaza, which is slated to be located near the entrance and exit of the parking garage.

Though Chair Mike Etheridge commended the developer on the design of the buildings, he acknowledged his concerns with how the site is going to accommodate the 189 families living there in the future as pedestrians, bicyclists and delivery and emergency vehicles access the site and the train station.

“I do acknowledge … that this is a very challenging lot size to accommodate and I do think there’s been a great attempt to balance … safe access and also a large number of units,” he said. “One-hundred-eighty-nine units is an accomplishment on that footprint.”

anna@smdailyjournal.com

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