San Mateo Safeway could get housing complex added under developer proposal

By CBS Bay Area

Align Real Estate recently filed a housing proposal in San Mateo, and debate over the project has already started.

The proposal is to convert a Safeway grocery store along the 1600 block of South El Camino Real into a nearly 400-unit housing complex. The developers said that 55 of them would be designated for low-income households. 

“We need more affordable housing in San Mateo. We need more housing built — period — in San Mateo,” Gary Magill, a San Mateo resident, told CBS News Bay Area. 

He said he’s been living in the neighborhood for the past eight years. As a freelance videographer, he said it’s a challenge to make ends meet. 

“It’s definitely been difficult to earn a living wage in San Mateo and afford the increasing costs like electricity, gas,” he said.

Developers said that they would reconstruct the Safeway grocery store into what they call a “modernized” version of the market that would fit in with the housing complex. 

“We already have a lot of grocery stores in my opinion,” Magill said. 

Dino Antoniazzi, who has been living in San Mateo for more than 30 years, said he is against the proposal. 

“We don’t have to be this high in density in this area in a neighborhood. And a lot of people are against it, but yet there are a lot of people that just want it. It’s all about money, all about developers, all about the city,” he said. 

Antoniazzi added that new construction would add to the traffic at an already busy intersection. He said that the Safeway grocery store has been convenient for him and his neighbors, as the common market standing in the area. 

“This was a kind of little quiet gem in the neighborhood. And all of a sudden, it’s going to be exposed to quite a few people,” he said. 

“I don’t think we have a housing crisis. We have a commercial building crisis, where we keep building a lot of things. And then, of course, we have to start providing for all those people. So, if they don’t build it, they won’t come. If you build it, they will come,” Antoniazzi added. 

CBS News Bay Area spoke with city officials about what’s next with the proposal. 

“The city is very supportive of housing and housing development applications, because we recognize that key need. But at the same point, supporting and maintaining key services like grocery stores is also a top priority for the city,” Zachary Dahl, the community development director for the city of San Mateo, said. 

He said this is the first step of the development approval process, and that once the application is deemed complete, Align Real Estate would need to hold a community neighborhood meeting. 

Once the formal and complete application is submitted, city officials will then go through the standard review process and decide whether to move forward with a formal hearing. 

Dahl added that the city is looking at 25 total projects, including proposed, approved, and under construction plans. He said that they are discussing the building of a total of 6,500 units, of which more than 1,000 would be affordable units. 

“More opportunity for middle to lower class income earners to be able to afford to live here and not have to live paycheck to paycheck,” Magill said. 

Under this project, the developers hope to include more than 130 retail parking spaces and separate residential parking spaces in below-grade parking. As for the Safeway employees, the developer said that they would help to temporarily reassign staff to nearby stores. 

“Make sure that the grocery store use can serve the community all the way through the process,” Dahl said.