Renderings Revealed For Buena Vista Commons At 3980 El Camino Real, Palo Alto

New renderings have been revealed for the affordable housing redevelopment of the Buena Vista Village at 3980 El Camino Real in Palo Alto, Santa Clara County. The plan offers replacement housing for residents of the city’s only mobile home park as part of the 105 potential dwelling units. Santa Clara County Housing Authority is the project developer.

The primary goals of the proposal are “to make substantial physical improvements, ensure financial sustainability, and maintain over 100 affordable homes,” according to the SB330 application. The application goes on to state that, “existing tenants at the property will be allowed to return to the apartment regardless of whether they income qualify at move-in.” The John Stewart Company will continue to serve as the property manager through construction.

The development is being split between two parcels. One parcel will contain the three-story, 61-unit apartment complex named the Buena Vista Commons. The second parcel will have 44 occupant-owned mobile homes closer to El Camino Real. The mobile homes will include park-model RVs and Manufactured Housing.

Of the 61 rental apartments, there will be seven junior one-bedrooms, 20 one-bedrooms, 18 two-bedrooms, and 16 three-bedrooms. One of the two-bedroom units will be a market-rate unit for an on-site property manager, while the remaining units will all be affordable to households earning less than 80% of the area’s median income.

Van Meter Williams Pollack is the design architect, and Plural Studio is the landscape architect. The detailed illustrations of the apartment complex were published as part of Palo Alto’s architectural review process. The mobile homes component of the project is being reviewed separately by the HCD.

Illustrations show the three-story complex wrapped with horizontal siding, fiber cement, and stucco. An asymmetrical collage of materials paired with structural setbacks and carve-outs will contribute to the building’s visual character in a fashion familiar to most new apartments across the region. The landscaping plan will add planters and trees around the surface parking and a larger open plaza connected to a community room by the apartments.

The engineering team will include Element Structural Engineers, Emerald City Engineers, and Sandis. The development uses SB 330 and the State Density Bonus Law to increase residential capacity and streamline the review process.

The 4.5-acre parcel is located in the Barron Park neighborhood of Palo Alto. Residents will be located along the vehicular and retail thoroughfare equidistant between Caltrain’s California Avenue Station and Mountain View’s San Antonio Station.

The estimated cost and timeline for construction have yet to be established.