A contentious Chick-fil-A project is moving forward after hitting a road bump.
The San Jose City Council unanimously approved removing a condition Tuesday that would have required a recently approved Chick-fil-A to construct the development without demolishing existing commercial buildings at 1301 W. San Carlos Street. Property owner Zotta Family Trust and applicant 4G Development & Consulting said the restraint would have prevented the 5,139-square-foot development from going through, leaving blighted old buildings to sit on the 1.09-acre site.
City planning staff said the last-minute condition was a mistake because the applicant wasn’t given the chance to speak about how it would hamper the project.
Joshua Safran, legal counsel representing owner Rosemary Zotta, said the decision was the right thing to do because Zotta is 89 and has been trying to retire from property management for years. Her family has owned the property for more than 50 years, and she’s lived her whole life in the neighborhood.
“She would have to leave (the old building) there like an open wound and try to wedge something new around it,” Safran said at the meeting. “This is Rosemary’s last chance at leaving a legacy for the neighborhood and for the next generation.”
Councilmember Michael Mulcahy, who represents District 6 where the project is, supported the condition’s removal because the restriction didn’t make sense to him. He said he hasn’t seen a condition like this in his 25 years of experience with planning hearings.
“They followed our code, met our standards, went through the process and then we tossed in a condition that ensures their project cannot be built,” Mulcahy said.
The project is controversial because it isn’t mixed use and won’t provide housing to the major corridor that’s part of the West San Carlos Urban Village Plan. Nearly 5,000 people signed an online petition against the project, and councilmembers received 134 emails opposed to it.
It also drew contention because it will replace a longstanding Taqueria Eduardo location. The Zotta family gave the restaurant notice of their plans to redevelop and sell the site in 2020.
Alex Shoor, executive director of housing nonprofit Catalyze SV, said the Chick-fil-A doesn’t align with the urban village plan because the area needs housing. He said the decision will affect the neighborhood for generations to come, and the council shouldn’t have approved it simply for legal reasons.
“These decisions that you make can be up to 50- to 100-year decisions, and making them based on the threat or fear of litigation is no way to plan the long-term future for this neighborhood in our city,” Shoor said at the meeting.
Mulcahy said there are 1,000 homes planned along the corridor under construction or in the pipeline, including 250 homes developed by Urban Catalyst.
“I encourage all of those folks that have been very passionate about this to help us encourage (development on) these other blighted sites, which are really wreaking havoc on West San Carlos,” he said. “We’re taking one off the market… but we need more help and we need more passion and organizations that were represented here today to help us keep the pressure on.”
Contact Annalise Freimarck at [email protected] or follow @annalise_ellen on X.
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