A shuttered golf course in East San Jose is ready for a future mixed-use housing project following city leaders’ recent adoption of development guidelines for the area.

Months of community engagement with District 5 and District 8 residents led the San Jose City Council to unanimously agree earlier this month that any proposed housing development at the former Pleasant Hills Golf Course should exceed the number of affordable homes required under city policy. Details about the proposal are still under wraps, as city planning officials say San Jose-based firm Terrascape Ventures has yet to submit its development plans. Terrascape Ventures Managing Principal Mark Lazzarini told San José Spotlight plans are still being reworked and he did not return a request for the preliminary plans.

Developers have been eyeing the roughly 114-acre unincorporated site for nearly 4,000 residences and about 785,000 square feet of commercial space, according to a previous filing with the city, but plans could change under the guiding principles. Those include rules around residential and commercial use, open space and amenities, transportation, sustainability and community programs — and are based on feedback gathered at community meetings. City leaders said residents prefer not to see large retail, office or hotel buildings in the area — rather they want more small businesses such as restaurants, shops and a mid-sized grocery store.

“The city council’s innovative approach to gathering community input in the early stages of the development process through the guiding principles vision is an excellent example of how all the stakeholders can collaborate,” District 5 United representative Juan Estrada told San José Spotlight. “The guiding principles adopted by the city council and developed from community input, which presumably included the guiding principles we recommended, form a strong benchmark to guide the future development of the Pleasant Hills Golf Course.”

The golf course closed in 2004 and is unincorporated county land. It was designated as private open space, barring development from the area until an obscure policy change in 2018 allowed for housing to be built on such sites.

Alice Kaufman, policy and advocacy director for Green Foothills, said she is concerned not enough green space will be saved for the benefit of not just future residents, but the whole community who will congregate at the potential mixed-use development. East San Jose has less green space compared to other parts of the city.

“Right now the area is not open to the public, but it is providing the benefits that urban green space provides in terms of climate resilience,” Kaufman told San José Spotlight. “The community is going to lose those benefits when the area develops — so it’s going to be really important to make sure that there’s still significant amount of publicly available green space.”

Catalyze SV Executive Director Alex Shoor said he is curious to see the details of the proposed housing development from Terrascape Ventures once plans are released to the city. Because there were only a handful of residents in attendance during the Oct. 8 meeting, he said it shows city officials are doing their job in keeping the public informed since there were more comments than questions.
“The main event is the actual development project,” Shoor told San José Spotlight. “So I think when the discussions of an actual proposal are more public, then we’ll see a lot more community members at the table.”

District 8 Councilmember Domingo Candelas highlighted the engagement process and said he personally went door-to-door to let neighbors within a 2,500-foot radius of the former golf course know about the guiding principles.

“I’m excited to keep this conversation going, and by no means is this the end of the process. In fact, we still have a long way to go,” Candelas said at the meeting.

Contact Vicente Vera at [email protected] or follow @VicenteJVera on X, formerly known as Twitter.