The 25 acres bounded by Benton Street, Lafayette Street, Homestead Road and Madison Street was, before 1960, Santa Clara’s downtown. An urban renewal project undertaken by the Santa Clara Redevelopment Agency in that year acquired the eight blocks between Lafayette and Monroe Streets and demolished all the buildings and eliminated most of the city streets in the area. Actual redevelopment has occurred since on a spotty basis, mostly with one- and two-story structures and mostly with surface parking lots.
The City’s intent is to create a Plan to provide guidance for new development or redevelopment through policies, guidelines, and illustrations that implement the community vision and objectives for a vibrant, pedestrian-oriented destination Downtown. The City’s goal is for the Downtown area to serve as an important gathering place within the local community as well as a symbolic center for of Santa Clara, continuing the City’s focus on “Placemaking” as a key strategy to support the quality of life for all Santa Clarans.
The foundation for the Precise Plan was laid through a series of community workshops between October 2015 and November 2017 in which community input on a vision for the Downtown’s future was gathered. A Downtown Community Task Force has been formed to advise the City.
As of the date that this page was written, there are no specifics on what the plan might ultimately envision for future as far as numbers of numbers, residential densities, housing affordability requirements, and what kinds of non-residential uses need to be incorporated. SV@Home will be recommending that the Plan require that a minimum of 15% of units be affordable to households at or below 80% of area median income and an additional 5% of units be affordable to households at 100% of area median income.
Learn more here.