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A long-planned housing project set to replace a portion of the remnants of an abandoned walnut orchard previously operated by the Borel family advanced through the Danville Planning Commission following a vote in favor of the project last week.
The commission voted 6-1 on Tuesday to approve subdivision and tree removal requests allowing for a seven-acre portion of the undeveloped Borel property to accommodate a housing project consisting of 124 for-sale townhouses and 43 for-rent apartments.
The for-sale units are set to be developed by Danville-based Trumark Townhomes, with the rental apartments – all set to be affordable to low- and very-low-income households under the proposed plan – being developed by Pacific West Companies, which specializes in affordable housing.
The seven-acre site at 3020 Fostoria Lane in the south of town near the San Ramon border is part of the 17 acres remaining of the Borel property, which has been vacant since the death of Armand Borel in 2009. With Borel’s health declining in the years before his death, the property – previously the site of an active walnut orchard for multiple generations of the Borel family – had begun to fall into disrepair, with the orchard no longer in operation.
The property previously consisted of 66 acres, with a majority having been developed already in order to accommodate the businesses at Fostoria Way and Camino Ramon including Costco, Marshalls and the Home Consignment Center.
With Borel reportedly having wished for the remaining property to be preserved as a publicly accessible park, the East Bay Regional Park District acquired the remaining 17 acres after his death, voting in 2021 to allow seven acres to be developed in order to fund a historical interpretive park on 10 acres.
Since then, a number of required studies have been completed behind the scenes to move development plans forward, including an acoustical analysis, a biological constraint analysis and arborist report completed in 2021, a transportation impact analysis in 2022, and a preliminary stormwater control plan completed in September. Air quality, cultural, and geotechnical reports were also prepared for review, with none pointing to obstacles for the project’s advancement according to town staff.
The affordable housing units would be along Camino Ramon, with all 43 units set to be affordable to households with low or very-low incomes – meaning below 80% of the county’s median income of $147,900 for very low incomes and 50% below the median for low incomes – with an affordability term set at 55 years.
The 43 affordable units put the project’s overall affordability distribution at 25.7% of the total 167 units.
The proposed project is subject to state Senate Bill 330, which is aimed at streamlining the process of new housing developments by limiting the ability of local jurisdictions to delay or deny new housing projects unless they are proven to pose significant health or safety detriments to the surrounding area. Under the legislation, passed in 2019, no more than five public meetings on applicable housing projects are allowed.
While it was once zoned for agricultural use, the remaining Borel property was zoned for multifamily residential use in the town’s last Housing Element in 2013. With no development on the site during that cycle, anticipated housing on the site now accounts for 150 of the minimum 2,241 allocated new housing units in the current Housing Element cycle.
Trumark is seeking a waiver on height and story requirements on the site under the state’s density bonus law, allowing for the development of three story buildings with a maximum height of 36 feet and 11 inches for a majority of the project and 40 feet for the affordable three-story apartment buildings.
The request is also subject to state law seeking to decrease barriers to new housing, with denial only allowed in the case of specific, adverse impacts on health and safety according to town staff.
The commission received a total of four public comments on the project – one written comment and three in-person comments Tuesday evening – all pointing toward concerns including parking, traffic and aesthetics.
“I always knew something was going to happen with the Borel Property,” neighboring resident Ed Anderson said at Tuesday’s meeting. “It’s gone through different things and now we’re here. My biggest issue, raising my kids there, walking my dog, ed is going to be the parking.”
Anderson said that he believed the project would result in Camino Ramon being “blown up with parking,” and that getting in and out of the property and driving along the road were “going to be horrendous.”
In a public comment at the in-person meeting, Mark Shaw said that traffic was already an issue in the area in the wake of the earlier development of businesses such as Costco and Marshall’s near the intersection with Fostoria Way.
“The fact that Costco is there and the Marshalls and the traffic that they created also for people who need to charge their car, and now Costco gas is there also – Anyone who’s been in that area, sometimes you get stuck at that light if you’re going to go northbound on Camino Ramon and you’re sitting there at least two lights,” Shaw said.
Shaw added that his concerns were not with the project specifically, but called on the town to seek ways to mitigate new traffic brought on by the additional housing and contend with current difficulty for drivers at the busy intersection in southern Danville.
While commissioners also expressed concerns about the traffic and parking impacts, they noted that with the project meeting state requirements for parking under the density bonus law, these did not pose enough of an obstacle to deter the project from moving forward.
Under state law, the town is not allowed to require more than one parking space per one-bedroom unit or more than 1.5 spaces for two- and three-bedroom units. The maximum required parking under the density bonus law for the 167-unit project in total would be 242, with the project set to provide 289 parking spaces.
Regarding traffic concerns, commissioners said a condition of approval for the project would be the requirement for some incentive for residents in the affordable housing apartments to be provided with a transit program and accommodations and incentives for residents to use public transit – potentially through measures such as a subsidized transit pass and/or a liaison relationship with County Connection aimed at providing additional bus service to the future residents of the site.
Town chief of planning David Crompton noted that existing plans for contending with traffic and pedestrian safety consisted of a new four-way stop sign and crosswalk near the entrance to the project, as well as an extension of the sidewalk northward that would go along the housing project as well as the 10 acre site of the planned interpretive park being pursued by the parks district.
Commissioner Mary Grace Houlihan, who cast the one dissenting vote against the project in that night’s meeting, said that she wished the project had incorporated additional considerations about livability for residents and overall aesthetics.
“Some of the things that concern me and what I would have liked to see a little different in this project are looking at that livability,” Houlihan said. “I think had Trumark looked at one more building footprint there could have been some opportunity not to have window on window. The other thing that concerns me is it doesn’t really look like four-sided architecture to me. It really looks like the driveway aisles really have a different feel than the rest of the building, and there could be a little bit more articulation with additional setbacks so those wouldn’t feel like such a wind tunnel.”
“I think there’s still some opportunity if my co-commissioners are in agreement to ask that some minor considerations be made to the ridgeline and what have you, and have that go back to DRB for consideration as a condition of the approval,” Houlihan added. “When we look at these things, these are going to be here for a very long time. And one of the wonderful things that we have in our Danville neighborhoods is they’ve got great architecture; they’ve got great livability, they’ve got that whole feel, and this development doesn’t feel like that to me when I look at this.”
Commissioner Lou Palandrani noted that the project had already been reviewed twice by the Design Review Board, where discussions had focused on the experience for future residents but also on the surrounding environment on the site.
“A lot of the reconfiguration in how these buildings are set, there’s been some movement there to not only try to support those living within but those that are outside,” Palandrani said. “It has been through multiple iterations in design review.”
With three of the seven planning commissioners including Palandrani being members of the Design Review Board, commissioners ultimately did not agree with Houlihan’s suggestion for further review of the project by that body.
With some modifications aimed at addressing traffic and parking concerns, Commissioner Robert Combs moved to pass a resolution approving the project, which the commission approved 6-1 with Houlihan’s dissenting vote.
As a project subject to SB 330 requirements, the Planning Commission’s vote was the final approval needed for developers to move forward, with no Town Council review or approval necessary except in the case of an appeal.
