When Windy Hill Property Ventures started working on an apartment proposal in Belmont, the developer originally proposed 175 homes.
After some discussion with city staff, Palo Alto-based Windy Hill re-submitted its proposal at 250 homes — the largest housing development in Belmont in decades.
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<p class="content__segment combx">“Housing has been grossly undersupplied on the Peninsula and in Belmont particularly,” said <a href="sanfrancisco/search/results?q=Jamie D'Alessandro">Jamie D'Alessandro</a>, a Windy Hill principal. “The housing-jobs imbalance is stark throughout (San Mateo County).” </p>
From 2010 to 2015, San Mateo County added 13.2 jobs per every new home built, according to a recent report from housing advocacy and research group Up for Growth California.
Much of that imbalance comes from neighborhood and city opposition to adding new homes. Belmont appears to be going in a different direction. The push for more homes came after the city rezoned some areas for higher density housing near transit.
Windy Hill’s project, at the corner of Old Country Road and O’Neill Avenue, sits a block away from El Camino Real near the city’s downtown and two blocks from the Caltrain Station.
To increase the number of homes, the developer expanded the project site to include more parcels to take up 2.1 acres on most of an entire city block. The original property Windy Hill sought out is a vacant industrial site.
The $100 million-plus project, designed by BDE Architecture, will encompass four stories consisting of studios to two-bedroom units and 38 apartments set aside for low-income tenants.
The proposal, known as Artisan Crossing, includes a 5,000-square-foot public plaza as well a public bike repair shop and a space for the nonprofit Community School of Music and Arts that the developer will offer rent-free as community benefits.
“We wanted to be conscious of the surrounding neighborhood and not do something that was too overbearing,” D’Alessandro said.
Belmont is a small Peninsula city of about 27,000 people that is tucked in between San Mateo, San Carlos and Redwood City.
“It’s no secret that the city is trying to encourage creation of a better town center,” said Carlos de Melo, Belmont’s community development director. “It was important to the city to create a framework and overall vision that enhances this part of the city and preserves single family neighborhoods and open space.”
The city is mostly residential and devoid of the large corporate campuses found in its neighboring cities, de Melo said. Still, the city is within a 10-mile radius of thousands jobs at companies such as Oracle Corp., Electronic Arts and Gilead Sciences Inc.
Housing production has been anemic, however, with roughly 10 new homes per year during the past two decades, but that is starting to change. San Mateo-Base Sares Regis Group of Northern California recently started sales of The Ashton, a 73-unit condominium project also within walking distance of the Belmont Caltrain station. Sares Regis is involved in another proposal with partner MidPen Housing Corp. for 81 homes 1300 El Camino Real.
De Melo said that the city anticipates at least 4,000 new residents in the next 15 years after little or no growth during the past 15 years.
The city conducted a lengthy planning process to rezone some areas and establish a specific plan to guide development.
“Folks came together and decided we need to create housing, but where? The answer was near transit and downtown,” De Melo said. “We are the geographical halfway point between San Francisco and Silicon Valley. (Belmont) is in a good central spot on the Peninsula. We’re not too far away from job centers.”
Part of Windy Hill’s approach to development lines up with the Belmont’s goal to maximize development in downtown areas close to transit, D’Alessandro said. The firm has built a number of office and multi-family housing developments on the Peninsula mostly in San Mateo and Palo Alto.
“The city did years of community outreach for the (downtown) specific plan,” D’Alessandro said. “They’ve done the groundwork for the kind of development they want. Now they have to process (new projects).”
Windy Hill could secure approval for Artisan Crossing within six months and start construction “as soon as possible,” he said. If all goes according to plan, the developer could complete the apartments sometime in 2021.