Bill Silverfarb
While a proposed 599-unit mixed used development proposed near the Hayward Park Caltrain station has broad support from various economic and environmental groups, residents in the area adjacent to the site say the city is hell-bent on overpopulating the neighborhood.
The San Mateo Planning Commission held a public hearing last night on Station Park Green, a development slated to be built where a Kmart currently sits at Delaware Street and Concar Drive.
The Greenbelt Alliance, Sierra Club, San Mateo Area Chamber of Commerce and the San Mateo County Economic Development Association all support the high-density transit-oriented development but residents from the Sunnybrae, 19th Avenue/Park and Fiesta Gardens neighborhoods say it will bring too much traffic to the area with not enough parking.
Station Park Green falls into the San Mateo Rail Corridor Plan as does a proposed office park on the south side of State Route 92 called the Hines project. It was also revealed last night that proposals will come in by the end of the year to redevelop the Concar Shopping Center, which houses Ross and CVS.
All of these proposals, residents say, will cause traffic and parking nightmares in the future.
Steve Doukas, who lives in the Delaware corridor, said he wasn’t so concerned what the chamber or Sierra Club thought about the project because those groups will not be impacted by the development.
“We are people living in the area who will suffer by this project. We should have more say,” Doukas said.
Doukas wants a neighborhood resident to be part of the as yet unformed Traffic Management Association to be run by the city’s Public Works Department.
Robert Nice wondered how the development would accommodate all the new tenant’s needs for parking. Each unit of the development is slated to have 1.5 cars per residence.
“I live in 19th Avenue/Park. Drive through those neighborhoods and you will see every family has three or four cars. Tenants of Station Park Green will come into our neighborhood looking for parking,” he said.
United Homeowners Association President Jeff Hylton said the added traffic to the neighborhood did not seem very green. He expressed concern about on and off ramps to State Route 92 could not handle the added traffic.
“We’ve seen increased traffic in the area in the past two years,” he said. “It looks like a traffic jam and nightmare to me. Having idling cars sitting in traffic does not seem very green to me.”
But Stephanie Reyes, of the Greenbelt Alliance, said she supported the development because it would get people out of their cars and onto the train.
“This is exactly the type of project I want to see in my neighborhood rather than a huge asphalt parking lot,” Reyes said.
EBL&S Development plans to demolish the Kmart that currently sits on the site and construct a mixed-use development with two acres of parks, 10,000 square feet of office space and 65,000 square feet of retail space, including space for a new Michael’s store to replace the one currently on the property.
Up to 100,000 square feet of office space was originally proposed for the site but was reduced to lessen the traffic impact to the area, said developer Alan Talansky.
###
