The final part of San Mateo’s massive Bay Meadows development is moving along, with just two blocks left to construct.
The 83-acre site was initially approved 20 years ago and comprises a mix of residential buildings, commercial space and public parks. The initial agreement was meant to govern development over 18 years, expiring at the end of 2023, but “impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic and the resulting slowdown in the office market resulted in delays to construct the final two blocks,” according to a staff report.
The city approved a three-year extension, which pushes the approvals from 2023 to 2026.
During a Planning Commission meeting Aug. 26, commissioners deemed the developers compliant with the ongoing agreement — though some surfaced concerns felt by current residents who are frustrated with a recent change in off-street parking.
The residential part of the development has been viewed as a model in sustainable development, as the sprawling mix of apartments, homes and townhomes sits right next to the Hillsdale Caltrain station and has ample bike paths and park space, encouraging residents to rely less on single-occupancy car trips.
When the residential units first opened about a decade ago, the city implemented a two-hour restriction on street parking during the day, even for residents, as part of its vision to cut down on vehicle use. The city stopped enforcing the rule in 2020 due to the pandemic, but started implementing the restriction for all residents in February.
As part of the current development agreement, the city is not allowed to implement a parking permit program for residents. The agreement could potentially be updated, though it could be a time-consuming and costly process, Community Development Director Zach Dahl said.
“Ultimately this wouldn't be something that the city would initiate. It would be something that the residents would need to,” Dahl said.
Residents would likely have to fund a traffic impact study, which would then be presented to the Planning Commission and the City Council. The council would still have to review and approve study and subsequent changes to the parking plan — something that is far from guaranteed.
Once the project is fully built out, there will be 1,048 residential units and over 1.2 million square feet of office space.
“It’s nice to hear that a permit will be issued soon and those two pits that we’ve been walking and driving by for quite some time will someday — sooner rather than later now — become 1,000 units of housing and office space, and this project will finally be completed,” Commissioner Adam Klafter said.
(3) comments
This is supposed to be a high-density, Transit-Oriented-Development (TOD), a walking/biking, sustainability mecca so to speak.
And yet you can't even take a high-density, sustainable, healthy form of transportation to the east (Foster City and SF Bay) or the west (the hills) from here since someone forgot to put high-density bike lanes, bike bridges, bike tunnels here. Basically none of the very recent grade separation projects has bike infrastructure attached to it.
From the beginning the project was as car-oriented - and therefore useless as TOD - as possible.
Asking for a friend.
When will the dedicated soccer and full sized baseball field appear that were promised by Albert Alberti, John Lee, David Lim and a hoard of other San Mateo politicians that drank the kool-aid being spewed by the infamous Los Angeles development firm?
Adam Alberti was the 'cold-blooded' hit man hired by the San Mateo City council and dept heads to shove the tearing down of Bay Meadows down native San Matean's throats.
During the negotiations of what will replace the track - promises were made that actual dedicated fields would be developed for Youth sports - for soccer, boys/men's hardball etc. This so multiple sport fields would not be created with 150 different colored lines on them for rugby, soccer - cricket - fill in the blank.
Those respective you groups are still waiting ...
Adam Alberti - remember that name . Lots of San Mateo Politicians cozied up to him.
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