Del Webb and San Juan Oaks Golf Club are getting set to take their final plans before county officials in the coming weeks and potentially start construction on nearly 1,100 homes as part of a planned senior-living community in the spring.
Pulte Homes subsidiary Del Webb is proposing to build 1,017 single-family, age-restricted homes on the San Juan Oaks property targeted toward active adults 55 years and older, along with a host of amenities that include a resort, community center and a skilled-nursing facility. Additionally as part of the project, San Juan Oaks would build 67 market-rate homes along the golf course.
The proposal amends plans originally broached by San Juan Oaks in 2004 for 186 homes. Del Webb—which had a 4,400-unit senior community near the airport rejected by Hollister voters in 2006—first publicly broached the possibility of partnering with San Juan Oaks two years ago.
The proposal is scheduled to go before the San Benito County Planning Commission on Sept. 16 and the county board for final approval Nov. 3.
The new homes would add to the current building boom in the Hollister and San Juan Bautista areas. Other developers such as Santana Ranch and Award Homes are finally moving on construction efforts along Fairview Road as smaller developers continue building subdivisions scattered throughout the area.
If approved by county officials, the Del Webb portion of the project would target so-called “active adults” who want to scale down with the size of their homes—the one-story houses would range from 1,400 to 2,500 square feet—while benefiting from conveniences nearby such as the golf club, a planned community center, a planned 65,000 square-foot commercial facility, an array of parkland and ample social opportunities.
Some of the other requirements for such Del Webb planned communities—many are located in retirement states like Florida and Arizona while this would be the company’s first signature Bay Area development—include being relatively close to a major airport, having access to healthcare facilities and living in an area with low crime, said John Johnson, the real estate consultant representing Del Webb on the project.
San Benito County fits the bill on all of those necessities, he said.
“These people are very particular they have these things,” Johnson told the Free Lance.
If the approval process goes as planned, Del Webb would start building its allotment first, likely in the first part of the second quarter of 2016, Johnson said. The company would hope to have a model home selling by the end of 2016, he said. Plans would call for a four-phase build-out totaling four to five years once homes are sold, the consultant said, while the expectation is that commercial facilities would crop up in the second or third year of construction after establishing demand.
Del Webb is already taking reservations for the new homes at the San Juan Oaks location on its website, delwebb.com. The 67-home San Juan Oaks portion of the project would be built between the ninth and 11th holes along the golf course.
Johnson and Scott Fuller, general manager of San Juan Oaks, listed off what they contend are significant local benefits coming from the project. Some that they mentioned include a boost to the lodging industry, as the new residents will have many visitors in town looking for places to stay, and to the school districts because Del Webb would inject an estimate of more than $3 million in property tax revenue annually to local schools and the community college. Its upscale, baby boomer residents, meanwhile, wouldn’t add a single student to any enrollment. The average 55-plus single-family home has less than half the number of people per household than a market-rate home, Johnson noted.
“We don’t add (students) to the schools,” Johnson said, underscoring how the homeowners aren’t allowed to have school-age children.
Johnson and Fuller also lauded the proposal’s penchant to promote outdoor spaces—with plans calling for four neighborhood parks, walking trails, bike trails, two community parks and 114 acres of common open space along with a 150-acre easement in perpetuity as prime farmland in the San Juan area.
“We’ve got over 1,200 acres of wildlife preserve,” Fuller said.
Developers also plan to use an array of water-saving techniques such as low-flow installations in the homes and planting of drought-tolerant landscaping “to the extent practicable,” according to a project summary from Del Webb.
County officials will consider all of the environmental impacts laid out in planning documents in September and November.
So far, as the project comes back for final approval, there hasn’t been any known opposition, Johnson and Fuller said.
While such issues as water are bound to come up before a final go-ahead, it is likely that traffic impacts, particularly to Highway 156 and Union Road, will surface during official discussions as well.
In the environmental impact report draft before supervisors, traffic studies show that three of 11 intersections primarily affected by the San Juan Oaks project currently do not meet Caltrans’ standards for traffic flow during peak travel times. Those intersections were Highway 156 at Bixby Road, Highway 156 at Union Road, and Airline Highway at Union Road, according to environmental documents.
For the purpose of the environmental review, the documents note how it is assumed projects are going forward such as the widening of U.S. 101 at 156, widening more than five miles of Highway 156, widening of Highway 25 and expanding Union Road.
Project Highlights
Active adult community on 500 acres
1,017 age-restricted homes
67 market-rate homes
200-room resort hotel
65k-square-foot commercial/office center
Four-acre assisted living facility
17k-25k-square-foot amenity center
1,243 acres of permanent wildlife preserve
To read the project’s environmental documents, go here.
