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Council reviews revised El Camino Real Specific Plan; staff plans public draft and EIR work
Summary
City staff and a consultant presented a revised El Camino Real Specific Plan that reduces the plan’s residential capacity to 4,400 units, adds a lower‑density corridor residential designation, tightens transition standards next to single‑family neighborhoods and keeps a multimodal street redesign in the corridor.
Santa Clara staff and their consultant presented revised draft revisions to the El Camino Real Specific Plan at a study session Tuesday night, asking council for direction ahead of a public draft and environmental review later this year. The revised plan reduces the specific‑plan development potential from a previously proposed 6,200 residential units to 4,400 and adds a new corridor residential low designation to accommodate townhome‑scale development where the corridor abuts single‑family neighborhoods.
Afsha Hamid, Community Development Director, framed the specific plan as a 15–20‑year vision to implement the city’s general plan along El Camino Real. “The specific plan addresses required topics such as land use, transportation, and infrastructure,” she said, describing the plan’s goals to streamline review and create local control over design standards.
Consultant Alessandra London said the plan now contains four primary land‑use designations: regional commercial mixed‑use (highest intensity), corridor mixed‑use, corridor residential (garden‑style apartments and similar), and corridor residential low (townhomes at 12–25 dwelling units per acre). London said roughly 60 parcels were reclassified to the lower‑density corridor residential low to reduce impacts where properties directly abut single‑family lots, primarily on the northern side of the corridor.
A major revision tightened neighborhood transition standards on the north side adjacent to single‑family properties. London said the plan now requires a 30‑degree daylight plane on the north side to reduce shading and upper‑story massing impacts; shadow modeling presented by staff showed the revised standard would limit incremental shading on adjacent yards, with winter solstice periods still showing some shadowing. The plan also includes landscape screening requirements and upper‑story stepbacks to protect privacy and limit shading.
Transportation changes maintain the plan’s multimodal right‑of‑way concept for El Camino Real, including an interim and final configuration that reallocates the existing 120‑foot right‑of‑way to add protected bike lanes, bus boarding islands, wider sidewalks and street trees. Staff said on‑street parking would be removed as parcels redevelop to accommodate a protected bikeway and other transit improvements; several council members and public speakers raised concerns about the loss of on‑street parking for small, shallow parcels on the east side of the corridor.
Two members of the public urged the council to keep the original, higher‑capacity plan on the table and to evaluate environmental outcomes for both plans. “El Camino Real needs a specific plan to streamline and spur development,” one public speaker said; another asked that both the original and revised plans be evaluated in the environmental review process to preserve future options.
Council requested additional detail and further refinement on parking, incentives for ground‑floor retail at key activity centers, and how the 30‑degree daylight plane would be measured on parcels where existing grades vary. Staff said a public draft and EIR scoping would be released later this summer or early fall and that adoption hearings are targeted for the fall. The council voted to “note and file” the study session materials and staff’s requested next steps.
