A Sunnyvale project to create walkable, interconnected neighborhoods could come up short, with advocates worried that vital retail services will be slashed.
City officials have identified seven aging shopping centers, with a variety of grocery stores and restaurants, throughout the city that are considered underutilized. The plan for these sites, called village centers, is to redevelop them for mixed-use housing and retail that could include grocery stores, restaurants or pharmacies.
Out of the seven village centers, the city is reviewing two proposals for North Sunnyvale — one for the Lakewood Shopping Center and the other for Fair Oaks Plaza. North Sunnyvale is a historically underserved, low-income part of the city, and officials and advocates worry the projects won’t include enough retail space to support the surrounding residents.
Sunnyvale spokesperson Jennifer Garnett said city planners are still reviewing the proposals to ensure they conform to development standards. After that, they will go to the Planning Commission for approval.
The 2019 state law Senate Bill 330 limits the city’s ability to deny projects. While some advocates want the city to institute objective design standards for the centers, the state’s density bonus laws could allow housing developers to skip retail space.
“The state has done a lot of things to make it really difficult for cities to deny housing applications,” Sunnyvale City Attorney Rebecca Moon said at a recent council meeting. “All I can say is we’re looking very hard at all of our options to preserve retail, and what the law allows us to do, we will pursue, to the best of our ability.”
North Sunnyvale resident Peggy Shen Brewster said removing retail could further marginalize area residents.
“It’s a food desert, and it’s going to become even more so with three less markets,” Brewster told San José Spotlight.
Not only would the grocery stores be removed, the redevelopment would also remove local restaurants in both shopping centers, which Brewster said are important community gathering spaces.
“I don’t want this to be another instance where, ‘Oh, we couldn’t pull through for North Sunnyvale, but we did it for the rest of the community,’” Brewster told San José Spotlight.
The proposals consist of a series of townhomes. The 911 East Duane Ave. location is expected to include 62 townhouses and the 1119 Lawrence Expressway location has plans for 95 townhouses, 16 accessory dwelling units and about 36,605 square feet of commercial space.
Beside the two pending proposals, two more have already been approved by the city, one at 166 and 102 E. Fremont Ave. and another at 877 W. Fremont Ave. Both are located south of El Camino Real.
The village centers are zoned for 18 units per square acre, which Councilmember Richard Mehlinger said is too low to properly support mixed-use developments. He said the city is considering increasing the zoned density to better facilitate retail spaces in the other village centers.
Mehlinger couldn’t speak on the two proposals because of their quasi-judicial nature, but said it’ll be important to consider the proposals with an open mind. He added that North Sunnyvale has a history of lacking certain services and spaces for residents to gather, such as coffee shops in the parts of his district north of the train tracks.
“North Sunnyvale has really been underserved by amenities like retail for a very long time, and the village center proposal was originally intended to help rectify that,” Mehlinger told San José Spotlight. “Instead, what we’re seeing is we’re seeing a real risk that what retail we do have, we may be in danger of losing.”
The city has been making plans to add resources in North Sunnyvale, including a branch library, but residents still have to travel extra distances to receive things like pharmaceuticals. Brewster said she travels about two miles to get to her pharmacy on El Camino Real. Gail Rubino, who also lives in North Sunnyvale, frequents a Walmart pharmacy located in Santa Clara.
Rubino, a member of advocacy group Livable Sunnyvale, said redevelopment of these retail spaces will disrupt some of the area’s only community spaces. She pointed out that these aging retail spaces are likely to have cheaper rent, so they’re easier for small business owners to afford. After redevelopment, she expects the rent to double or triple.
“It’s not the same retailers that are going to be in the same space, it’s going to be different retailers. It’s not a mom and pop,” Rubino told San José Spotlight. “It’s like if you redevelop Murphy Avenue, all of those restaurants would disappear.”
Contact B. Sakura Cannestra at [email protected] or @SakuCannestra on X, formerly known as Twitter.
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