Two apartment projects totaling 614 homes go before Cupertino's Planning Commission on Tuesday, and city staff recommends approving both, noting that state housing laws limit how far the city's review can go.
Eight stories beside Cupertino High
The larger and more visible of the two would replace a one-story office center at 19220-19300 Stevens Creek Blvd., on the corner of Finch Avenue across from Main Street Cupertino. The Hanover Company proposes a single eight-story building with 363 apartments, a parking garage with 451 spaces and two rooftop courtyards.
The 2.62-acre site shares its southern property line with Cupertino High School, and an 8-foot wooden fence would separate the two.
The city rezoned the site for up to 80 homes an acre in its 2024 housing element. Using the state density bonus law, the developer would build at about 136 an acre by setting aside 44 apartments at below-market rents: 33 for very low-income households and 11 for moderate-income households, according to the staff report.
The bonus also lets Hanover seek eight waivers and three concessions, including a height of 97 feet, 3 inches where 70 feet is normally the limit, and relief from the city's public-art spending formula and bird-safe design rules. Fifty-eight trees would come down, with replacements planted at street level and on the fourth-floor roof deck.
The office center now holds six tenant spaces, three of them vacant, with dental offices and a bank in the rest. A transportation analysis submitted by the applicant concluded the apartments would generate no net new daily or peak-hour trips compared with the existing offices.
Before the report was published, staff received one written objection, from owners of a home on nearby Judy Avenue who said an eight-story building would intrude on neighbors' privacy, cast shadows on backyards, clash with the low-rise neighborhood and add traffic. They asked the commission to consider reducing the height.
Staff wrote that the city may not deny a waiver of a development standard that would physically preclude the project as designed.
The commission's vote on this project is a recommendation; the City Council makes the final decision. Hanover agreed to extend the state processing deadline to Feb. 26, 2027.