One of California’s priciest enclaves is about to get a very un-Atherton housing test: a 30-townhome proposal on a single acre near Menlo Park’s Caltrain station. The plan would put five three-story buildings where the town’s default development pattern has long been one home on a sprawling lot. Six of the proposed homes are designated affordable, making the project a small but highly symbolic opening salvo under the state’s new transit-housing law.
AlphaX RE Capital, a Cupertino-based developer, has applied to build the project on Glenwood Avenue under Senate Bill 79, which took effect July 1. The site is within a quarter-mile of the Menlo Park Caltrain station, and the proposal is being watched as an early test of whether the law can bring denser housing to Atherton, according to The Real Deal.
The location is the point. Atherton’s own housing materials say SB 79 applies to seven properties around Glenwood Avenue, Laurel Street and Victoria Drive, while the town has no retail district and few of the pedestrian amenities that usually help support higher-density development. The town’s posted framework also says local rules cannot impose a height limit below 75 feet or a maximum density below 120 units per acre, details outlined by Atherton officials.
Why SB 79 Makes This Proposal Different
SB 79 makes qualifying transit-oriented housing an allowed use on residential, mixed-use or commercial sites near specified transit stops in urban transit counties. The California Department of Housing and Community Development says the law took effect July 1 and requires local jurisdictions to process qualifying projects, while the state bill text requires qualifying projects above 10 units to include an affordable component…