A huge housing/multi-use project proposed for Silicon Valley faced strong opposition. Nearby residents hated it and blocked smaller versions of the project that were on the 2016 ballot. The mayor called it out of place and sniped at outsiders who criticized his city’s history in adding housing stock. The building trades unions which sometimes come to the rescue of major developments because of the good-paying jobs they create seemed content to stay on the sidelines.
But despite these obstacles, the Vallco Town Center project has obtained a crucial go-ahead from the city of Cupertino – providing perhaps the most telling example yet of the power and scope of Senate Bill 35, the measure by state Sen. Scott Wiener, D-San Francisco, that was enacted last year with the goal of spurring new housing construction.
The developer Sand Hill Property Co. plans to build 2,400 residential units, 400,000 square feet of retail space and 1.8 million square feet of office space at the mostly vacant 58-acre Vallco Mall property (pictured), which the company acquired in 2014. Half the residential units would fall in the affordable category.
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