Council enthusiastically approves 209-unit Los Gatos Meadows senior living project

In stark contrast with the antipathy shown towards the slew of affordable housing developments that have cropped up in Los Gatos in recent months that seek to bypass local control, the Los Gatos Meadows senior facility has now achieved final approval, winning over not only all the Town Council members, but many of the residents who live in the vicinity, too.

The 110 Wood Road proposal has come a long way since it was unanimously voted against at Planning Commission back in January 2022, and at their regularly scheduled meeting Feb. 4, the elected officials were effusive in their praise.

“I want to thank everyone involved in this process for thinking about community,” Mayor Matthew Hudes said, just before calling the vote. “This will be a fantastic addition to the town…It is something that I know many of us hoped would move forward, and I think it’s moved forward in a very constructive way.”

Due to the proximity of her own home, Councilmember Maria Ristow recused herself during the discussion and vote.

In 2022, the Los Gatos Meadows redevelopment was proposed to become the tallest building in Town, complete with penthouses.

Local officials urged the developer, at the time Covia Communities, to make the building less exclusive, and smaller.

In the months since, Covia merged with Glendale-based Front Porch Communities and Services; and the project was reconfigured to remove the penthouses and organize the structures to create less of a visual impact.

‘Thank you for working so hard’

—Councilmember Mary Badame to the Front Porch team

Meanwhile, Los Gatos failed to submit a compliant Housing Element to the State, which resulted in at least 18 Builder’s Remedy housing proposals landing in Town inboxes—including some with towers much larger than what Covia had first pitched.

Councilmember Mary Badame said she truly appreciated the lengths Front Porch went to in order to satisfy Los Gatans.

“It’s been stellar,” she said. “It was top-notch. So, thank you for working so hard.”

The prior Los Gatos Meadows senior living community was in operation from 1971-2019.

The 10.8-acre site has been sitting vacant ever since.

Front Porch was seeking the right to remove 192 trees and grade the property.

On Nov. 13, the Planning Commission unanimously supported the project, but asked the developer to look at reducing the height further.

Frank Rockwood, of Rockwood Pacific Inc., has been working on the vision since before the original one shuttered.

“This is not a Builder’s Remedy project,” he said. “Accordingly, Front Porch has engaged the community extensively. In fact, the level of community engagement has been substantially higher than any other project I’ve worked on in my 30+ years in real estate development.”

They assembled a team that included Perkins Eastman, for site planning and architecture, Kimley-Horn, for planning and civil engineering, Gates + Associates, for landscape architecture and W.E. O’Neil, on the construction end of things.

Front Porch is a nonprofit that offers a range of services, such as the Home Match program—which connects older people who have space in their homes with community members seeking Bay Area affordable housing—and Ruth’s Table—which provides older adults, and those with disabilities, opportunities for creative expression (online and in person).

Over dozens of meetings and public forums, they continued to tinker with the Los Gatos Meadows plans, acquiescing to the desires of community members in some ways, but holding the line in other ways.

J. David Hoglund, of Perkins Eastman, said the project was redesigned to blend into the hill on which it’s perched.

“The proposed design creates a village feel, with eight villa buildings and a total of 187 residential units,” he said. “The villas are tucked into the hillside with a continuous underground base that contains parking, services and community for the residents. The villa buildings rise up from that base three stories on the front of the site, and up to six stories on the rear of the site against the hillside.

‘Front Porch isn’t just a big developer looking to cash in on Builder’s Remedy’

—Alan Feinberg, local historian

“It’s important to note that our proposed tallest six-story villa is below the elevation of Wood Road at the back of our site. It’s an unusual and challenging site that’s steeply sloped in excess of 90 feet with preserved oak woodland at the top.”

Mary McMullin, chief advancement officer for Front Porch, said their plan was to be much more than a place for seniors to reside.

“We are ready to enhance the concentric circles of community living in keeping with our mission. First, Los Gatos Meadows, then the ever-increasing circles of families and staff and friends that are part of this—and the final concentric circle of Los Gatos as the greater community,” she said. “We will actually be adding much more to the community, including more homes that are served and more people that are served. We are ready. We’d love to get started.”

Rob Stump, a prominent wildfire prevention advocate who was recently appointed to Planning Commission, said he was pleased with the property-hardening measures.

“Due to the design of this development, it serves as a fire break from South Santa Cruz Avenue and some residents on Broadway,” he said, noting he wasn’t speaking in his commissioner capacity. “From a wildfire preparation and mitigation perspective, I believe the applicant has taken appropriate steps to limit the potential impacts due to wildfire for this senior community.”

Another public commenter, Carin Yamamoto, said she was concerned by the access to the facility, considering hundreds of people will be living and working at the location.

“I just don’t like the plan. I’m worried,” she said. “It still comes down to one road in, one road out.”

Catherine Somers, the founder of Centerpiece Flowers, said the homes will support the local business community.

“We have a lot of seniors in this community who live in big houses all over town,” she said. “They want to stay in Los Gatos. And they want to continue doing business in Los Gatos. But they don’t really have any place to go. They need a luxury living site.”

Neighbor Julie Southern said she’d been to more than 10 Los Gatos Meadows outreach meetings.

“It wasn’t until they did the redesign from four stories to six stories that it became another item for me to show interest in, or have an issue with,” she said.

Councilmember Badame asked how she felt about the most recent plan, which included an option to reduce the tallest building to five stories (though this would raise the height of another building on the property).

“Five is great,” she said. “Four would be wonderful.”

Vice Mayor Rob Moore asked how many units they’d lose by doing this, and learned it would be just two.

Los Gatos Thrives board member Alan Feinberg urged the Council members not to stall the project any longer.

“Front Porch isn’t just a big developer looking to cash in on Builder’s Remedy,” he said. “They’ve spent the last five years bending over backwards.”

Interestingly, because the Planning Commission and Council pushed back on the penthouse idea, the developer ended up increasing the independent units from 174 to 187 units.

While Moore would’ve liked to see the Meadows bring in 211 new units, he said he was happy to support the shorter option—with 209 units (meaning there would, in the end, be 185 independent units that can be credited towards the Town’s required homes count of 1,993 plus a buffer over the next several years).

“I think our older adult community really deserves this kind of housing,” he said.