KB Home Plans 800 Homes on San Jose’s Communications Hill

KB Home has moved forward with plans to build nearly 800 homes on San Jose’s Communications Hill.

KB Home South Bay, a unit of the Los Angeles-based developer, has filed plans to build up to 799 single-family homes, townhouses, condominiums and apartments between Altino Boulevard, Hillsdale Avenue and a Caltrain/Union Pacific railroad line, SFYimby reported.

The 140-acre Village Center development is part of a master-planned development launched four decades ago on the 400-foot-tall hill topped by microwave towers south of Downtown.

The property is owned by MTA Hillside, according to SFYimby. Other reports say it’s owned by MTA Properties, based in San Jose.

KB Home seeks approval for Phase 3 and Phase 4 of its Communications Hill project, including up to 799 homes designed by KTGY, based in Los Angeles.

Plans call for single-family homes, detached townhouses and attached townhouses and apartments.

The development will include up to 505 apartments in four five- and six-story buildings, with structured parking on 8.4 acres. The project would feature 32,900 square feet of shops and restaurants and 6,200 square feet of “amenity/leasing space.”

The number of single-family homes and townhouses in the development was not disclosed. While a city “vesting tentative map” allows for up to 402 condos, it’s not clear how many KB Home wants to build.

Communications Hill was once owned by Portuguese immigrant Manuel Azevedo, founder of American Dairy, according to the Silicon Valley Business Journal.

The Bettencourt family, descendants of Azevedo, own MTA Properties and have worked with the city since the 1980s on the hill’s development. Construction didn’t begin until the early 2000s, however, when KB Home built the 760-unit Tuscany Hills.

A master plan for the 332-acre Communications Hill called for up to 4,000 homes, a 55-acre industrial park, a 67,500-square-foot shopping center and open space along an urban-style grid. It was put on hold by KB Home during the Great Recession.

In 2014, KB Home received approval to build 2,000 attached townhomes, small-lot single-family homes and apartments up to six stories, in both Mediterranean and contemporary styles. MTA owns the 55-acre site zoned for up to 1.4 million square feet of industrial buildings, and the Village Center site.

— Dana Bartholomew