Apr 30, 2008

City council OKs Canada College apartment plan

By Neil Gonzales / Bay Area News Group

Leonor Cabrera could be among the first tenants in a new apartment complex at Canada College.

"It's been difficult to live in this area with all the (subprime mortgage) issues and rising rent," said Cabrera, a Belmont renter who teaches accounting and business at Canada and is already on the list for housing provided by the San Mateo County Community College District.

On Monday night, the Canada project passed city council muster, overcoming some neighborhood opposition.

The council denied an appeal by the Woodhill Estates Homeowners Association of a planned-development permit involving the proposed 60-unit affordable-housing project on a Canada parking lot along the boundary between Redwood City and Woodside.

The council also adopted other findings and resolutions that moved the project forward.

"This is a tremendous partnership" among the college district and two communities, said Redwood City Council Member Jim Hartnett. "This is a good example of how things should be done."

Hartnett also applauded the involvement of those who criticized the project.

"This project is going to be a far better project ... because of the activism of the neighborhood," he said.

But "I think their fears are unfounded," he added.

The Woodhill association expressed environmental and other concerns, although the group supported the project as a whole.

"We would have liked to see an environmental study, because we felt that was the law," said Gail Hilstrom, the association's treasurer. "But we think it's a good project for Woodside and Redwood City."

The association had contended that the project did not satisfy the requirements of the California Environmental Quality Act, because studies by the city and district inadequately identified and analyzed "all of the impacts," Robia Chang, the association's Walnut Creek-based attorney, said in a Feb. 26 appeal letter to the council.

In a letter Monday, Chang also told the council that any general plan and zoning changes require environmental review under the California Environmental Quality Act.

"The city must analyze the potentially significant environmental effects of the proposed approvals and mitigate or address those effects," she added.

However, association members are happy about some of the changes that have happened to the project, Hilstrom said.

For instance, the design now features a softer, more residential look compared to the commercial appearance it had before, she said.

The group has no plans to challenge the project further.

"We're done," she said. "It's time to move on."

Last September, the district board certified an initial study and adopted a "mitigated negative declaration" - documents indicating that the project would pose no serious environmental problems given mitigation measures.

"We've done everything that's required under CEQA," district spokeswoman Barbara Christensen said.

The project is expected to break ground in September and be finished about a year later, she said.

District officials hope to construct two apartment buildings on a lightly used lot on the east side of the campus, she said. The complex would feature first-class units of up to three bedrooms.

District officials believe such projects help attract and retain teachers.

Cabrera agrees, saying, "It would certainly make it easier for me to stay in the same community where I work."

The project still has to pass through other steps before actual construction can begin, including going before the San Mateo Local Agency Formation Commission, which oversees jurisdictional boundary changes.

That's because district officials have proposed redrawing boundaries to put the entire project in Redwood City.

The 3-acre project site is currently in Woodside, but the town has no zoning for multifamily structures and no sewer capacity for such a development.

The Canada project would follow the model of the 44-unit complex that opened in December 2005 at College of San Mateo. The College Vista development cost $8.6 million and offers monthly rates between $830 and $1,400, Christensen said.