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SAN JOSE — After discovering one of the city’s latest tiny home communities is set to be built on dedicated park land, Councilmember David Cohen is asking the city to put the project on “pause” and start looking for other alternative sites in North San Jose to house homeless residents.

In late June, the council voted 8-2, with Councilmember Matt Mahan and Cohen dissenting, to move forward with six new tiny home villages in the 2022-2023 fiscal year.

The dorm-like shelters have become San Jose’s latest strategy in solving a burgeoning homelessness crisis that has grown an estimated 11% since 2019. Earlier this year, the city set a goal of constructing 400 tiny homes that will act as interim housing while homeless residents await more permanent housing.

But one of those sites, on Noble Avenue near the Penitencia Creek Trail, has drawn the ire of residents who are concerned about its proximity to an elementary school and a library.

In the weeks following the council’s vote, Cohen, who represents the area, said he discovered the Noble site is actually dedicated park land. Cohen, who said he’s supportive of tiny homes in general, is now asking city officials to put the project on hold and evaluate other locations in North San Jose to build the dwellings.

“I think that it’s important for us to maintain that park land and keep it accessible for the public use,” Cohen told this news organization. “The community in our district puts a high premium on open space and parks and we shouldn’t be sacrificing that space, especially when we know we have a lot of other possible spaces that we can use to solve this problem.”

Cohen has previously proposed two alternative sites for tiny homes in his district: on Pecten Court just south of Milpitas and off of King Road between Berryessa and Maybury roads.

Percolation ponds sit behind the site, and the space is an access point for neighbors looking to enjoy the ponds and the Penitencia Creek Trail — a 2.8-mile trail system that runs from Coyote Creek to Alum Rock Park.

The city has a 25-year joint signed agreement from 2007 in place with Santa Clara County and the Santa Clara Valley Water District to use the Upper Penitencia Creek area — which Cohen believes includes the tiny home site — for “parks, recreation, open space, flood management and water conservation purposes.” Any changes in the use to area, he said, would have to be approved by all three governing bodies.

Cohen will make his plea to the council’s rules committee on Wednesday, but said he believes that when the council learns the site is park space and not just an unused city-owned property, “that they will agree that this is not a good place to build this housing community.”

For his part, Mayor Sam Liccardo said that while he’s not in support of building tiny homes on park land, the question now is whether or not the site is park land — something the city’s attorneys are currently working on figuring out.

The backlash from residents living near future tiny homes or other housing developments is not a new issue in San Jose. In many cases, neighbors within a certain radius of the project are notified before any development proceeds.

Liccardo wants to ensure residents living within 1,000 feet of tiny home communities are alerted so the city can “have very clear and honest conversation with neighbors before we take these actions.”

“The typical pattern is and always has been that we identify sites for affordable housing, whether it’s for the unhoused or anyone else,” he said. “And too often, in some neighborhoods, the response is hundreds of unhappy neighbors come to a neighborhood meeting to push for any other site.”

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