https://www.bizjournals.com/sanjose/news/2025/12/18/willow-glen-residential-building-advances.html
Story Highlights
Redco Development received approval for a 126-unit development in San Jose.
California's builder's remedy provision enabled the project's approval despite zoning.
Thirty percent of units are reserved for low and moderate-income households.
A proposed seven-story residential structure in San Jose’s Willow Glen neighborhood has received a site development permit under a state provision that streamlines housing development.
The green light to advance on the 126-unit mixed-use development at 940 Willow St. was given to San Francisco-based real estate firm Redco Development at a Dec. 3 planning director hearing as first reported by San Jose Spotlight. The project will sit on a roughly one-acre lot at the southeast corner of Willow Street and Kotenberg Avenue and will feature 1,626 square feet of retail space.
The development will replace an existing Beer Wine & Spirit liquor store and is moving forward largely because of California’s builder’s remedy provision.
Builder’s remedy, which took effect in February 2023, prohibits local governments from refusing projects that do not adhere to their zoning and planning guidelines unless a specified detriment to public health and safety can be demonstrated.
San Jose is subject to the provision as it pertains to the 33 applications submitted — such as the Willow Street project — while the city lacked a substantially compliant, state-approved housing element. The concept of builder’s remedy has been around for over 30 yearRuth Cueto, San Jose’s principal planner, said there are “very narrow findings” for the project’s denial. She added that the development does not have considerable negative effects on public health or safety and largely meets zoning or development design standards.
“Or where it doesn’t, there are categories under state density bonus law or the Housing Accountability act that it falls under. And therefore, I must approve this project because there aren't any federal or state laws where this project can be denied and the project has not shown that it would have any significant adverse impacts on public health and safety based on objective standards,” a transcription for the hearing reads.
According to project manager Alec Atienza, 15% of the units are reserved for “very low income households” and 15% of the units are reserved for moderate-income households.
Further, the project includes an application under the State Density Bonus Law for a 97% density bonus that doubled the amount of allowable units.
The Willow Glen community was largely divided on the forthcoming project, opponents said the development would lead to more traffic congestion and did not fit the neighborhood’s identity.
“It is just too large for a very old neighborhood,” said Michelle Belasco, a Willow Glen resident of more than 40 years.
She continued, “This is a very old neighborhood, and we need to realize that the size of that building will dramatically impact the quality of the sewer system and the health and safety that will impact [residents,]”
Proponents argued that it would spur positive foot traffic, add much-needed housing which bolsters the notion that Willow Glen would contribute its “fair share” to new development and expressed excitement about the promise of commercial amenities and revitalization.
Another resident named Emanuel said he grew up going to the liquor store that currently stands at 940 Willow St. but referred to the space as “underutilized” and that it is time for Willow Glen to put up its healthy dose of affordable housing.
“I just wanted to express my approval for the project,” he said. “I'm really glad that that underutilized liquor store that sometimes I see undesirable activities at … when I drive by in the evening or at night, is getting repurposed into multi-family housing so 126 other individuals or families are able to live in this beautiful neighborhood that has so many resources, and anybody should be able to live in.”
Emmanuel added that many of the concerns shared by other neighbors echo the “same, tired comments” he hears whenever housing is proposed.
Redco Development co-founder Chris Freise told the Silicon Valley Business Journal that his firm has spent time trying to acknowledge the voices of adjacent neighbors.
This includes building the development in a way so that it appears less imposing.
According to the Mercury News, the project will be composed of 52 studio apartments along with 50 one-bedroom, 20 two-bedroom and four three-bedroom apartments.
“We're building 25 units that are at 60% of AMI,” Freise said. “Those are going to be for teachers, firefighters, professors at San [Jose] State, like, just stuff that the city needs, it deserves.”
What’s more, this isn’t the first time a seven-story project in Willow Glen that has been approved.
According to a 2023 San Jose Spotlight report, the city green-lighted plans to demolish a roughly 30,000-square-foot former senior assisted living facility to establish a more than 200-unit apartment building on 2.2 acres at 1050 St. Elizabeth Drive. The Elizabeth Drive development was projected to be completed in 2026; however, its status is unclear.
Freise said Redco’s proposed development is positioned in a terrific area with many neighboring restaurants and retail thanks to Willow Glen’s bustling Lincoln Avenue, something the project will complement once complete.
“If you're going to put density somewhere, [the development is] a block and a half off of Lincoln, where all the kind of streetscape and the retail, all the things that we want. Why shouldn't it go there?”