A big win for new affordable housing next to Apple Park

Posted:
in General Discussion
A dead shopping mall next to Apple Park has been fighting to reinvent itself as a mix of retail, offices and new housing for years, only to be blindsided by NIMBY groups seeking to protect high housing prices. A new state law, however, promises to streamline approval enable the market to solve California's dire housing shortage.




A proposal by developer Sand Hill Property Co. to revamp the old Vallco Shopping Mall site--located next to Apple's Vallco Parkway and its other offices around Apple Park--has been languishing in its planning stages for four years.

Cupertino's government has generally frowned at building any new housing (during a severe shortage of places to live in the region) because it gets more tax revenue from office space. Apple's local taxes alone fund around 30 percent of the town's budget.

However, new SB 35 legislation written by California state Senator Scott Wiener of San Francisco now enables a faster, simplified approval process for projects that are zoning-compliant and provide for at least 50 percent of their housing units to qualify as affordable.

"We need more housing now, and we spent 50 years erecting obstacle after obstacle to housing. We need to remove those obstacles," Wiener was cited as saying in a report by the SF Chronicle.

Sand Hill Property has taken advantage of the new law to file an application to build 2,400 housing units at the site, which will not need City Council approval, along with 1.8 million square feet of office space and 400,000 square feet of retail, as part of its Vallco Town Center plan.


Vallco Town Center rendering. Source: Sand Hill Property Co.


Given that Apple has been snapping up all the office space it can in Cupertino (including new buildings recently built between the mall and Apple Park) it's likely that the company might express interest in occupying major new office space within walking distance of its new campus, as well as offices at 1 Infinite Loop.

Apple and the Mall

Vallco Mall and its sprawling parking lots sit next to a series of Apple's existing Vallco Parkway offices, including new space the company now leases next to the recently built "Main Street Cupertino" project, which actually does involve both new offices and some housing.


Current Vallco Mall site


The large indoor mall, which bridges over Wolfe Road, is about as old as Apple itself: built in 1976 as Americans were fleeing the cities to pave over surrounding farmlands in order to build out the sprawl of suburbia.

This move created the Petri dish of Silicon Valley, where kids like Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak were raised in safe communities of middle-class families, with the ability to pursue their curiosities--taking advantage of specialized technical education and job opportunities at the region's founding technology firms, including Atari and Hewlett Packard (the latter of which paved over the orchards and occupied the land where Apple Park now sits) and even found their own new companies.

In the mid-80s, Vallco Mall, originally called "Vallco Fashion Park," began facing new competition from more modern shopping centers. Like Apple itself, the mall attempted to refresh and expand itself to remain competitive. However, in the 1990s it was hit by a series of forces, including the emerging role of online retailers and the fact that increasingly affluent demographics in Silicon Valley weren't attracted to its midrange tenants.

In 2007, as Apple released the iPhone, Vallco Mall added a new 16 screen theater and a bowling alley. By 2015, the decline of retail prompted its owners to come up with new plans to demolish the entire thing and rebuilt a modern mix of shopping, offices and housing on a street grid covered with green parks, orchards and gardens.

The project was called The Hills of Vallco. The planning site (portrayed in a rendering below) would be directly opposite from Apple Park's garages (top of the image) and across the street from the company's Vallco Parkway 2A building (top right).

However, homeowners concerned that any new housing might affect the stratospheric valuation of their own property (in a city where a standard family home is priced in the millions) rushed to kill plans for any new housing. Two competing measures, one to block the construction of anything on the site apart from retail, and another to push through the original The Hills of Vallco plan without the risk of it being derailed by opponents leveraging the city planning process, both failed to pass in 2016.


Vallco Town Center rendering. Source: Sand Hill Property Co.


In the year since, things have only gotten worse for Vallco Mall as its large anchor stores (formerly Sears, Macy's and JC Penney) remained abandoned and its interior walkways lead to little more than empty retail stores and a few random low-rent tenants. Its owners have announced that they have no interest in trying to spruce up the site because it demands a larger investment to create something new.

Homeowners are still trying to block any new housing, asking that the old mall only be replaced by a new shopping center, despite the fact that there is clearly no real demand for a shopping center in Cupertino.

At this point, Vallco could probably best serve as an opportunity for Apple to take over the property and use it for expansion of its existing Vallco offices. But housing advocates are asking Apple's workers--most of whom can't afford to buy housing in Cupertino even with professional salary--to push for new housing on the site. At the currently insane housing prices of Silicon Valley, a couple of Apple employees trying to buy a house in Cupertino would face a mortgage of around $10,000 per month

At the currently insane housing prices of Silicon Valley, a couple of Apple employees trying to buy a house in Cupertino would face a 20 percent down payment on an existing home at a price even higher than greater SV's median of $1.17 million, meaning they'd also have to pay a mortgage of around $10,000 per month. And there are only a couple dozen available houses for Apple's thousands of employees to even attempt to buy anywhere near the company's offices.

That prompts much of Apple's workforce to commute from more affordable (or at least more desirable) areas, including San Francisco, around 40 minutes away when there isn't any traffic. Apple has worked to develop a network of buses to minimize the impact of traffic because the Bay Area suburbs lack much effective transit of their own.

Some residents in desirable areas of San Francisco served by buses from Apple (and other firms in a similar predicament, including Google) have demonized the influx of new workers as a gentrifying force, as if the City would be better off in an economic decline, with the kind of violent crime and decay that San Francisco limped through in previous decades of lower rents.

San Francisco also faces a long-term housing shortage, in part because activists there, as in Cupertino, work to block the development of any new housing (particularly any housing density), fearing that any new housing would be filled with some sort of undesirables.

While no panacea, the redevelopment of Vallco Mall as a place for people to live, work and shop could at least help reduce the need for long-distance commuting and further shifts that displace people and raise rents elsewhere.
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Comments

  • Reply 1 of 22
    fallenjtfallenjt Posts: 4,053member
    Affordable in Cupertino? LOL. It doesn't matter. They can sell the house at 20% cheaper and no one would be able to afford it. Why don't they just do thing like San Jose before: co-investment in the properties in which City will fund 40% of the house price for 1st time home buyers as "silence loan" and owners will pay it back when the house is sold splitting the gain? It was such a good program and many SJ residents bought their 1st home that way.
    edited March 2018 anton zuykovmorecklostkiwijony0
  • Reply 2 of 22
    Interesting alternate reality perspective on the cause of the housing shortage in the Bay Area. The actual reason, is of course rent control. Unsurprisingly developers seems disinclined to build housing and then be forced to rent it for a loss. 
    SpamSandwichJonInAtl
  • Reply 3 of 22
    50% affordable is a better goal than is typical in many cities around the country. Not sure about those giant sloped lawn areas in drought-stricken CA though. They probably need to add quite a bit more drought resistant landscaping and axe a lot of the lawn.
  • Reply 4 of 22
    maestro64maestro64 Posts: 5,043member
    The Silicon Valley, needs high rise living, but they will not do that for a couple of reasons, first they do not want the skyline blinders, second they have to deal with earthquakes.

    I feel bad for those who spend most of their income of housing and the situation will not get better.


    ronncurtis hannah
  • Reply 5 of 22
    sflocalsflocal Posts: 6,092member
    maestro64 said:
    The Silicon Valley, needs high rise living, but they will not do that for a couple of reasons, first they do not want the skyline blinders, second they have to deal with earthquakes.

    I feel bad for those who spend most of their income of housing and the situation will not get better.


    I don't understand why earthquakes and skyscrapers would be an issue.  San Francisco has plenty of skyscrapers and earthquakes don't affect them at all.  As long as they're built right with modern quake-absorbing technologies, it's a non-issue.

    NIMBYs are the worst in towns like Silicon Valley, and (especially) San Francisco.  They are the reason that housing has been stalled for decades and why we're in the predicament that we're in already.
    lostkiwi
  • Reply 6 of 22
    NIMBYs are the scourge of the earth. They are OK with development, as long as it happens somewhere else. A more elitist attitude can’t be found anywhere. The y exist because politicians’ desire for office outweighs serving the greater good.
    lostkiwi
  • Reply 7 of 22
    mac_dogmac_dog Posts: 1,069member
    Interesting alternate reality perspective on the cause of the housing shortage in the Bay Area. The actual reason, is of course rent control. Unsurprisingly developers seems disinclined to build housing and then be forced to rent it for a loss. 
    Spoken like a true NIMBY. https://medium.com/@tenantstogether/rent-control-works-a-response-to-business-school-professors-misguided-attacks-1305d9770ff7
    morecklostkiwimattinoz
  • Reply 8 of 22
    foggyhillfoggyhill Posts: 4,767member
    maestro64 said:
    The Silicon Valley, needs high rise living, but they will not do that for a couple of reasons, first they do not want the skyline blinders, second they have to deal with earthquakes.

    I feel bad for those who spend most of their income of housing and the situation will not get better.


    Japan has much more severe earthquake issues, including an 9.0 earthquake a few years ago, and most building survive that. It's the tsunami that destroys things.

    moreck
  • Reply 9 of 22


    Wait isn't that from Sim City?  I noticed there's no fire or police departments built and the tax meter is set too high. Time to unleash Godzilla. 
    anton zuykovStrangeDays[Deleted User]
  • Reply 10 of 22
    NIMBYs are the scourge of the earth. They are OK with development, as long as it happens somewhere else. A more elitist attitude can’t be found anywhere. The y exist because politicians’ desire for office outweighs serving the greater good.
    It is fun when you get them to contradict themselves and smoke comes out of their ears. 
    I have neighbors like that and they don't bother me anymore after I pointed out that the cell tower they were opposing was just a few miles from another one that they had no problem with. The reason was the new one wasn't using their carrier so it was an eyesore and dangerous and their carrier's tower was neither. 
    🙄
    morecklostkiwi
  • Reply 11 of 22
    What’s ridiculous about this article is that the developer is using a new housing bill which is supposed to help the housing crisis, then turns around and puts so much commercial in the project that they end up creating over 6,000 jobs!  They only add 2,400 residential units.  Way to use a new law all wrong!  
    [Deleted User]
  • Reply 12 of 22
    mac_dog said:
    Interesting alternate reality perspective on the cause of the housing shortage in the Bay Area. The actual reason, is of course rent control. Unsurprisingly developers seems disinclined to build housing and then be forced to rent it for a loss. 
    Spoken like a true NIMBY. https://medium.com/@tenantstogether/rent-control-works-a-response-to-business-school-professors-misguided-attacks-1305d9770ff7
    The article supports your view if you are looking at how to keep people in existing rent controlled housing.  It also supports the ideas that new housing won't be built in rent controlled areas.  The $7 billion in savings to the tenants is $7 billion in lost potential revenue to a new landlord.  If rent control goes into effect an existing owner can pick up their building and move it outside the rent controlled area.  There are lots of big cities where rent controls have limited the construction and upkeep of new and existing housing. 
  • Reply 13 of 22
    SpamSandwichSpamSandwich Posts: 33,407member
    Interesting alternate reality perspective on the cause of the housing shortage in the Bay Area. The actual reason, is of course rent control. Unsurprisingly developers seems disinclined to build housing and then be forced to rent it for a loss. 
    Indeed. The people who complain about the housing market fail to realize it's their very own policies which ignore free market principles that are the root of the problem.
  • Reply 14 of 22
    moreckmoreck Posts: 187member
    These selfish, elitist NIMBY types are so gross. Thanks for making things worse for just about everyone except you and your neighbors.
    lostkiwi
  • Reply 15 of 22
    lostkiwilostkiwi Posts: 639member
    Interesting discussion and the linked Medium article was very good too. 
    We have similar issues with full throttle NIMBY power here in Auckland, NZ - as there is no rent control at all we have predictable results (a housing crisis). 

    It’s funny but we have exactly the same regulatory capture & hear the same soundbite arguments from the speculators & real estate industry here. 


  • Reply 16 of 22
    Or the NIMBY view is totally justified as there is no room in the existing schools, the I-280/Wolfe they are putting this on is already bad with the opening of Apple Park, and the reason Vallco is in such dire shape is that Sand Hill has been actively forcing out tenants for the last several years so they can point at how bad the mall is.

    Also, not sure why Apple Insider feels the need to take a heavily biased political stance on local real estate politics.  Should I be looking for Sand Hill advertising dollars on this site?
  • Reply 17 of 22
    SpamSandwichSpamSandwich Posts: 33,407member
    lostkiwi said:
    Interesting discussion and the linked Medium article was very good too. 
    We have similar issues with full throttle NIMBY power here in Auckland, NZ - as there is no rent control at all we have predictable results (a housing crisis). 

    It’s funny but we have exactly the same regulatory capture & hear the same soundbite arguments from the speculators & real estate industry here. 


    “Housing crisis”... LOL.

    Isn't part of issue that NZ is a tiny country that has relatively little area to develop housing?

    Also, look at this wasteful spending. Public housing and government subsidies distort and corrupt markets and the ability to determine fair pricing based on market forces instead of political meddling:  https://i.stuff.co.nz/national/86778451/government-announces-50m-social-housing-development-in-waterview
    edited March 2018
  • Reply 18 of 22
    oledjtoledjt Posts: 2unconfirmed, member
    Just curious, why are some commenters mentioning rent control? There isn't rent control in most of the south bay.
  • Reply 19 of 22
    k2kwk2kw Posts: 2,075member
    What would help most is Apple and Google building satellite offices in other parts of the country where they would employee thousands and also move some employees out of Silicon Valley.
  • Reply 20 of 22
    steveausteveau Posts: 299member
    NIMBY or BANANA (build absolutely nothing anywhere, next to anyone)?
    SpamSandwichSpamSandwich
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