Taylor Woodrow Homes, whose 94-unit, small-lot housing project recently failed to gain approval from the Cupertino City Council after years of effort, does not intend to give up on the site, its western region president says.

The options it is now considering are senior housing, because it would not send students into the city's respected schools, or simply fewer homes, Mike Forsum says.

Whichever path the company chooses, however, it is unlikely to avoid further conflict.

The city is deeply conflicted on many fronts, with staff supporting alternatives the council does not, the community at large skeptical of both, and council members themselves sending the company mixed messages on what it would accept.

Cupertino Community Development Director Steve Piasecki, who strongly supported Taylor Woodrow's proposal for 94 homes on the 12-acre site, says he can't see senior housing there, despite the low impact on schools. The location, near Bubb Road and Imperial Avenue, lacks ready access to the amenities that older folks often need -- a nearby drug store, for instance. Mr. Forsum acknowledges that this is true.

But Mayor Richard Lowenthal thinks senior housing is a good way to go.

Mr. Lowenthal recused himself from the Taylor Woodrow vote because he believed he had a conflict of interest as his child attends Cupertino schools. He also said his daily drive takes him through the area that is the focus of community traffic concerns. The city's attorney said Mr. Lowenthal had no legal conflict. Mr. Lowenthal says he has taken a lot of heat for his decision. He's not sure if he can vote in future on the site's development.

"I would not categorically say I would not, but I'm afraid people might think I'm playing favorites and voting on the issues that I want," he says.

Meanwhile, Councilwoman Dolly Sandoval, who also supported Taylor Woodrow's previous plan, said she could not in good conscience agree to put fewer than 94 houses on the property.

At the same time, the city's new master development plan, itself a contentious document, contemplates that 94 houses go on this exact site. Yet, fewer homes and fewer students seem to be exactly what the community is telling the council it wants.

Mr. Forsum says he also feels reluctant to drive down housing density, too, because that doesn't address the region's housing shortage and exacerbates Cupertino's high prices.

Ms. Sandoval is not opposed to industrial uses of the site, but she fears the neighbors might.

"If residents tell us they don't want even light industrial there, that's complete NIMBYism, and that's not acceptable and putting the city council in an unfair position. We can't take somebody's use of their land from them and without facing liability," she says.

Despite such mixed signals, Mr. Forsum says he believes a solution exists. He blames the company for the previous project's failure, not the difficulty of getting new housing approved in Cupertino. Somewhere, somehow along the way, the developer failed to digest everything the community had to say, he says. It also failed to communicate fully to the citizens of the town the real value, not just the monetary value, of $2.7 million in contributions to the schools, more than $1 million in road improvements and a two-acre park it had promised to donate. Valued as residential property, the park is worth some $6 million.

"That's where we missed the boat in Cupertino," Mr. Forsum says, "explaining that this was a win-win-win for everyone. When we addressed the school issues, it may have looked like we did it for the wrong reasons. We wanted to do it for the right reasons."

After all, one reason Taylor Woodrow wants so much to be in Cupertino is the quality it its schools, he says. It has no sensible reason to hurt them.

For its part, property owner Grosvenor, a U.K.-based private real estate company, is evaluating all options before it, including a return to light industrial use, says Alan Chamorro, a Grosvenor vice president in San Francisco.

Under the city code, that could include a used-car sales lot, a lumber yard, packing and crating operations and a commercial parking lot as well as manufacturing, processing, assembly and research and development factories.

Whatever happens, says Mr. Chamorro, the existing buildings will come down and the property will be put to use.

"I think the community has become used to nothing being there, but that's the one thing it will not be," he says. "It's too valuable for it to just sit."

Silicon Valley/San Jose Business Journal
March 31, 2006
by Sharon Simonson