El Camino Real (ECR) is the City of Santa Clara’s most visible and identifiable commercial corridor. The City’s General Plan vision for the street is to transform the Focus Area from a series of single-story, automobile-oriented strip malls to a tree-lined, pedestrian and transit-oriented corridor with a mix of residential and retail uses.
The Focus Area consists of all the properties fronting the 3.2-mile stretch of the boulevard between western City boundary in vicinity of Lawrence Expressway and Lafayette Street to the east.
The EIR scoping meeting in 2019 defined the project (i.e., the draft plan) as:
- Adding up to 6,200 units of development capacity to the 2,073 units already allowed by the City’s General Plan (some of which have been built), or a total capacity of up to 8,273 units at build-out.
- At build-out, there will be 315,000 fewer square feet of commercial space than exists today.
- Building heights would be between 3 to 6 stories in height, depending on the applicable land use designation.
As of the date of preparing this webpage, no determination has been reached on inclusionary housing requirements and/or the overall percentage of new units that will be affordable. SV@Home has recommended 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.
It is anticipated that the draft EIR on the Plan will be available by early-April 2020 and that the City Council will be presented with the Final EIR and the draft Plan in the August/September 2020 timeframe.
Learn more here.