North Sunnyvale residents fight development to prevent food desert

A grassroots advocacy group in North Sunnyvale is working to stop the area from turning into a food desert.

The threat of losing the area’s few remaining grocery stores to housing redevelopments at Fair Oaks Plaza and Lakewood Shopping Center has fueled residents to push city leaders and developers to find a way to preserve essential retail while adding new housing. Residents said rapid housing growth in North Sunnyvale has outpaced investment in grocery stores and other daily services, raising fears the area could become increasingly difficult to navigate for older adults, low-income families and people who rely on walking, biking or public transit.

“The question is not whether Sunnyvale has retail space somewhere else,” Himanshu Sethi, a founder of the advocacy group WTF (Where’s the Food), told San José Spotlight. “The question is whether residents will continue to have walkable access to groceries, food businesses and daily needs within this neighborhood.”

Sethi said residents initially organized under a broader North Sunnyvale community group before adopting the WTF acronym to make the campaign more recognizable. The group launched a petition that’s gathered more than 3,500 signatures and created a WhatsApp group connecting roughly 150 residents across North Sunnyvale neighborhoods, including Fair Oaks and Lakewood.

Residents said concerns intensified after two shopping center redevelopment proposals threatened to significantly reduce retail space in the area. Advocates said the Fair Oaks proposal could remove roughly 70% of the existing retail footprint, even after revisions added commercial space to the project.

The Fair Oaks proposal includes 67 homes, keeps the existing Speedy’s Tacos building and adds a new two-story commercial building totaling approximately 15,635 square feet, according to city officials. Plans to bring 101 townhomes to the city would redevelop Lakewood Shopping Center, which includes New Wing Yuan Market — one of the only places to get groceries in North Sunnyvale. While the plans include a 10,000-square-foot retail building, residents said that’s not enough to sustain the neighborhood.

Sethi said residents are not opposed to housing development, but want the city and developers to balance housing growth with grocery access and neighborhood-serving businesses.

“We need a balanced approach here where we have a walkable neighborhood that actually gives access to essentials,” Sethi said. “We’re not talking about 7-Elevens. We mean fresh food and actual grocery stores.”

Representatives for True Life Companies, which is proposing the Lakewood redevelopment, and Fair Oaks Plaza owner and developer Nicholas Gera did not respond to requests for comment.

District 5 Sunnyvale Councilmember Richard Mehlinger said he has been meeting with concerned residents about the redevelopment proposals for more than a year, but next steps in the development process have not been decided. He said at the city’s recent budget workshop, the City Council approved a policy proposal aimed at increasing service levels for the Office of Economic Development and developing a retail strategic plan.

“If the developer is interested in adding retail, I am very happy to work with him on that and to go to bat for that,” Mehlinger told San José Spotlight.

Some residents and shoppers said the existing businesses serve as more than retail centers. Dave Grigsby, who’s visited Fair Oaks Plaza weekly for about 15 years to meet friends for lunch at Barn Thai and occasionally shops at Taj Mahal Fresh Market, said he doesn’t want redevelopment to displace longtime businesses. He attended a recent community outreach meeting, where he said he learned some existing businesses may not be able to afford rents once the property is redeveloped.

“I would very much miss it,” Grigsby told San José Spotlight. “Not only do I have lunch here once a week, I also shop at the Indian market. It’s a really nice place to get good food at a reasonable price.”

Taj Mahal Fresh Market owner Saifullah Memon said he has not received a development timeline and remains uncertain whether the business would relocate if the shopping center is redeveloped.

“A lot of notices came, and they want to build housing and they say it’s a necessity,” Memon told San José Spotlight. “(Groceries are) the necessity for the residents of the neighborhood.”

Not all residents share the same level of concern. Victoria Rojas, who lives near Lakewood Shopping Center, said she occasionally shops at New Wing Yuan Supermarket for convenience, but does not rely on it regularly.

“I don’t come here shopping a lot,” Rojas told San José Spotlight. “Everywhere food is expensive. If they get rid of this store, it wouldn’t make a difference.”

Niaz Khan, a local resident and shopper at Taj Mahal Fresh Market, said he relies on the market for products he cannot easily find elsewhere. He said the market became especially important during the COVID-19 pandemic because the larger space made shopping feel safer and less crowded. If the market closes, Khan said shopping would become more difficult.

“The meat is one of the big things,” Khan told San José Spotlight. “I could figure out the rest somewhere else, but then I’d have to go to multiple places.”

Contact Maryanne Casas-Perez at [email protected] or @CasasPerezRed on X.