REPORT TO PLANNING COMMISSION
SUBJECT
Title
Patrick Henry Drive Specific Plan Study Session
Report
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
The City formally commenced preparation of a Specific Plan for the Patrick Henry Drive (PHD) area following the City Council’s approval of a contract on August 22, 2018 with planning consultants, Moore Iacofano Goltsman, Inc. (MIG). The Specific Plan will serve as an implementation tool for the City’s 2010-2035 General Plan. The Patrick Henry Drive Specific Plan area is designated as a Phase III Future Focus Area for high-density residential development in the General Plan. Preparation of the Specific Plan will establish new General Plan land use designations, land use and urban design policies, amenities, and infrastructure to support the redevelopment of the PHD area from low-intensity office and industrial park use into a high-density, mixed use neighborhood.
The purpose of the study session is to provide the Planning Commission with an overview of the Draft Patrick Henry Drive Specific Plan, answer questions and prepare for the Planning Commission recommendation of adoption hearing in two weeks on January 26, 2022. City Council consideration of the Draft Plan for adoption is scheduled for March 26, 2022.
BACKGROUND
The Patrick Henry Drive Specific Plan Area is approximately 62 net acres located at the western boundary of the City of Santa Clara at Calabazas Creek, bounded generally by the Hetch-Hetchy right-of way to the north, Great America Parkway to the east, and Mission College Boulevard to the south. The City of Sunnyvale lies to the west, across Calabazas Creek. Immediately to the north of the Hetch-Hetchy right-of-way is the former Yahoo! Campus, now owned by Kylli. The Tasman Drive light rail line is approximately ten minutes walking distance from any portion of the Patrick Henry Focus Area, and public transit is also available on Great America Parkway. The Patrick Henry Drive area contains 17 light industrial properties and three public streets, with access to Great America Parkway and Mission College Boulevard. The building stock in the Patrick Henry Drive area consist mostly of one and two-story concrete tilt-up industrial buildings built in the late 1970s and early 1980s, with a series of distinctive four-story concrete buildings along the east side of Old Ironsides Drive.
At an April 2019 City Council meeting the Council also reviewed the following objectives applicable to both the Patrick Henry Drive and Freedom Circle areas:
• Neighborhood Planning: Establish new land use designations customized for the plan area; frameworks for the development of parks and open spaces, circulation, urban design; an infrastructure plan with funding strategies, design criteria and guidelines for buildings, streets and open spaces; and implementation plans.
• Commercial Development: Strategically locate retail nodes throughout plan areas. All new residential development should be within a 10-minute walk of at least 20,000 square feet of neighborhood serving commercial uses.
• Parkland and Open Space: Establish a parkland dedication standard (consistent with the recently developed Tasman East Specific Plan) which requires a minimum of 22 percent of total developable land be allocated to programmable public parkland and other open space amenities. A maximum of 50 percent of this total dedication may be developed in the form of private open space, with the remainder required to be dedicated as programmable public parkland. Applicants will also be required to comply with the Parkland Dedication Ordinance, including payment of fees equivalent to the total obligation identified in City Code Chapter 17.35. Include privately owned publicly accessible spaces throughout new development to provide additional open space amenities and support placemaking.
• Community Amenities: Identify a location for a new public school, branch library and publicly accessible community meeting spaces. Locate the school with connections to open space areas. Consider a range of library types, such as siting a new urban library on the ground floor of a mixed-use development or locating a library within a new park. Create new meeting spaces which would be accessible during evening and weekend hours for public use. Evaluate the potential for a new community center.
• Infrastructure: Develop an infrastructure plan and associated funding plan that ensure infrastructure will be adequate to support planned uses, densities and intensities. The infrastructure plan will ensure orderly, efficient provision of infrastructure and establish an equitable structure through which improvements will be funded.
• Walkability: Repurpose and redesign existing rights-of-way to provide a human-scale, multi-modal environment with greatly enhanced pedestrian facilities.
• Affordability: Require 15 percent of all residential units developed to be made affordable to households at or below 80 percent of area median income (AMI). The Specific Plans include the conversion of industrial and commercial lands to residential uses, which have higher market land value, supporting a higher standard for the delivery of affordable units than seen Citywide. While the City’s Affordable Housing Ordinance requires 15 percent of residential units to be developed as affordable, the affordability of the units is set at 100 percent of AMI. Creating an 80 percent AMI affordability requirement for affordable units produced in the Specific Plans will diversify the City’s affordable housing inventory and create opportunities for households with lower income levels.
Also, at the April 2019 meeting the Council reviewed the following objectives for the Patrick Henry Drive area:
• Establish land use policies that allow the transformation of the area from office and light industrial uses to a high-density residential urban neighborhood.
• Support high density land use, with some mixed-use buildings to provide neighborhood- and site-serving retail and community amenities.
• Provide approximately 4,500 - 5,000 residential units with estimated densities ranging from 85 - 200 du/acre.
• Allow a range of building heights between 5 and 25 stories, with lower height buildings planned along the western edge of the plan area.
• Provide a primary public park centrally located within the plan area, connected to a central north-south greenway, and supported by plazas and other smaller scale open space areas.
• Increase east-west and north-south non-vehicular connectivity options, including a new “slow street” connecting to the 3005 Democracy Way (Kylli) Project and VTA service to the north that emphasizes pedestrian and bicycle movement over automobile traffic flow.
• Provide a new vehicle connection to Mission College Boulevard.
• Provide improved connectivity to the Calabazas Creek trail.
• Identify a potential branch library site and spaces for day care or other community amenities.
Project Description
The Patrick Henry Drive Specific Plan plans for two potential build out Scenarios.
• Scenario A includes approximately 12,000 net new residential units and 310,000 net new square feet of non-residential uses, of which 200,000 square feet is net new retail or public facilities space for uses such as library and/or community room space. The remaining non-residential uses include 110,000 square feet for educational facility uses.
• Scenario B substitutes office for high-density residential in the “High Density Flex” zone along the eastern edge of the Plan Area, amounting in an approximate total of 10,300 net new residential units, 785,000 net new square feet of office, and 310,000 net new square feet of other non-residential uses (e.g., retail, community space, library, educational facility).
|
|
Residential Units |
Office |
Other Non-Residential Uses |
|
Scenario A |
12,000 |
- |
310,000 SF |
|
Scenario B |
10,300 |
785,000 SF |
310,000 SF |
Additionally, at a December 2019 meeting, the City Council reviewed a preliminary site plan and provided direction to staff as follows:
• Parkland and Open Space - 22% of the Specific Plan area is proposed to be designated as public parkland or publicly accessible privately maintained open space. The proposed parkland includes a central park spine running north/south through the center of the new neighborhood and two smaller parks located at opposite edges of the Specific Plan area.
• Circulation - the Plan makes use of the existing street right-of-way and identifies new vehicular and multimodal circulation roads and/or paseos throughout the plan area to promote pedestrian and bicycle use and break up the existing superblocks to support intensified land use.
• Community Benefits - in addition to parks, open space, retail, a community meeting room, and other benefits already included in the Specific Plan, the Specific Plan will include provisions for a public library space on the Z&L property as a community benefit tied to an increase allowance for density above what the Specific Plan would otherwise allow.
DISCUSSION
The following highlights three topic areas of particular interest to the Planning Commission and the public. The approach described below is intended to follow the overall guiding principles for preparation of the Specific Plan to support a significant amount of new housing growth as proposed by individual property owners while maximizing the incorporation of community amenities in a manner that shares their costs over multiple projects and does not make implementation of the Specific Plan infeasible.
1) Land Use Plan, Roadway Alternatives and Urban Design Framework (Amenities)
The Land Use Plan and Urban Design Framework (Attachment 2) identifies locations for proposed residential and flex land use designations within the Specific Plan to align with the two potential development scenarios previously reviewed by the City Council and analyzed in the EIR.
Generally, the most intense land uses are located in the center of the Plan area. The High-Density Flex designation is proposed for the property fronting Great America Parkway, where either high-intensity office uses or high-density residential are appropriate land uses. Ground floor retail square footage and public uses are distributed among several properties fronting onto Patrick Henry Drive to foster a new pedestrian-oriented street with active ground floor uses and amenities to support the development of a complete neighborhood. In addition, each diagram has two alternatives, one with and one without a roadway connection to Mission College Boulevard. The roadway alternatives are discussed further below.
The plans also identify proposed locations for public facilities and amenities such as parks, open spaces, a community room, and space for a new public library. The land use plan supports the development of the segment of Patrick Henry Drive perpendicular to Great America Parkway as a new “Main Street” for the Patrick Henry neighborhood, with civic uses and open space areas arranged along this east-west axis. Land dedication to benefit the broader Plan area will be borne by multiple property owners in the Specific Plan, with many contributing land for roadway, parkland, greenway, library and/or community space. Some properties will also be required to incorporate space for retail to support the implementation of the Main Street.
2) Proposed Land Use Designations
The proposed Specific Plan land use plan would utilize four residential land use designations and one flexible residential/commercial designation:
• Very High Density (51-100 du/ac)
• Village Residential (60-150 du/ac)
• Urban Village Residential (100-150 du/ac)
• Urban Center Residential (120-250 du/ac); and
• High Density Flex designation (60-150 du/ac or up to a 2.0 floor area ratio of commercial development).
These densities correspond to the input provided by the Patrick Henry Drive area stakeholders and are reflected on the Land Use diagram. Maximum allowable building heights would range from five stories at the lowest allowed density designation to 25 stories at the highest density designation. The tallest building heights are allowed at the center of the plan area with more restrictive, lower building heights in place closest to the western edge of the plan area, which is closet to other existing residential uses. Buildings will also be generally limited by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) airport height limits.
3) Circulation and Roadway Network
The Land Use Plan makes use of the existing street rights-of-way but also identifies a limited amount of new vehicular and multimodal circulation roads and/or paseos throughout the plan area. These new circulation routes will allow additional routes of travel within the Plan area, promote pedestrian and bicycle use, and break up the existing superblocks to support intensified land use. The new roads are intended for low-speed vehicular use, emphasizing shared facilities where pedestrians, bicycles and cars all have an equal ability to use the rights-of-way. New greenway connections are also proposed in the interior of the central block to promote pedestrian and bicycle circulation and break up the massing of future development.
At the December 21, 2021 Mission College Board of Trustees meeting, the Board of Trustees voted unanimously to not approve the proposed connection to the Mission College private driveway from the Patrick Henry Drive plan area.
The Patrick Henry Drive plan has been adjusted to reflect the decision by the Mission College Board of Trustees to not support the connector roadway. The new Land Use Diagram and Urban Design Framework both no longer include the connection to the Mission College private driveway. The alignment for the potential roadway is now shown as a greenway or other park-like feature. The alignment of the connector was shown as being 60’ in width and is located directly adjacent to a 45’ wide Art Garden on the SummerHill property. Although these two amenities are being planned independently of and could be built years apart from each other, consideration should be given to strategies to combine these two amenities or to at least make them complementary to each other.
An alternate version of the revised plan will still include a potential connection between the Patrick Henry Drive plan area and the Mission College private drive, if in the future the Mission College Board of Trustees decides to reconsider and decides to allow for the connector to be extended onto Mission College’s property. The potential connector roadway will be shown on the Alternate Land Use Diagram and Urban Design Framework with a caveat in the plan that on December 21, 2021 the Board of Trustees voted against the connection and that any potential connection would have to be reconsidered by the Board.
Previous Planning Commission Feedback
The Draft Patrick Henry Drive Specific Plan was presented at a study session to the Planning Commission on October 28, 2020. The Commission provided comments and asked questions about the proposed building heights, density, and transit access. In response to a Commission question, staff clarified that school uses are being analyzed in the EIR so should a property be acquired for a school in the Specific Plan area, no additional environmental review would be necessary for the proposed use.
ENVIRONMENTAL REVIEW
The action being considered is a study session only and does not constitute a “project” within the meaning of the California Environmental Quality Act (“CEQA”) pursuant to CEQA Guidelines section 15378(a), as it has no potential for resulting in either a direct physical change in the environment, or a reasonably foreseeable indirect physical change in the environment.
A Draft Environmental Impact Report has been prepared and circulated for the Specific Plan. The Final EIR including responses to comments received through circulation will be brought to the Planning Commission for recommendation to the City Council along with the Specific Plan.
FISCAL IMPACT
There is no fiscal impact to the City other than administrative staff time and expense.
COORDINATION
This report has been coordinated with the City Attorney’s Office.
PUBLIC CONTACT
A virtual community meeting was held on March 11, 2021 to present the draft plan to the community. There were approximately 70 attendees. Speakers at the meeting expressed concern with traffic impacts, the potential roadway connecting the plan area to Mission College Boulevard, and planning for future pandemics.
Public contact was made by posting the Council agenda on the City ’s official-notice bulletin board outside City Hall Council Chambers. A complete agenda packet is available on the City’s website and in the City Clerk’s Office at least 72 hours prior to a Regular Meeting and 24 hours prior to a Special Meeting. A hard copy of any agenda report may be requested by contacting the City Clerk’s Office at (408) 615-2220, email clerk@santaclaraca.gov <mailto:clerk@santaclaraca.gov>.
Staff
Drafted by: John Davidson, Principal Planner, Community Development Department
Approved by: Reena Brilliot, Assistant Director, Community Development Department
ATTACHMENTS
1. Web Link to Draft Patrick Henry Drive Specific Plan
2. Land Use Plan and Urban Design Framework