San Jose has removed a “poison pill” condition from the permit of a controversial Chick-fil-A proposal at the corner of Race and West San Carlos Streets, paving the way for the development to be built and much to the chagrin of housing advocates who oppose the project.

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While the popular franchise received approval to move forward with a one-story, 5,139-square-foot restaurant, the hearing officer had denied its request to demolish an existing building and on the 1.1-acre lot, an act that property owner Rosemary Zotta equated to throwing “a hand grenade into a well-designed, well-intentioned and completely compliant project” allowed under the city’s zoning code. But San Jose’s latest action allows the building to be demolished.

“Over the past six years, since 2019, I have been working with a team of professionals to redevelop the property,” Zotta said. “Tom Spilsbury, my real estate broker, has brought to me three different proposals, all of which have fallen through, all due to outside circumstances that were beyond and outside my control. However, now we are grateful and lucky to have finally found a good and viable partner in Chick-fil-A.”

The plot of land at 1301 West San Carlos Street has been in the Zotta family’s possession for more than 100 years. Her grandfather and grandmother bought the property in 1915.

Joshua Safran, an attorney representing Zotta, stated that her family had developed the existing building nearly 70 years ago. However, Zotta is now 89 years old and needs to plan for the future, as the current structure has become both physically and economically obsolete.

One of the other plans that had come forward but ultimately shelved due to economic issues was for a 230-unit, multi-story, mixed-use development. Developers also had eyed another quick-service restaurant proposal before the proposal fell to the wayside.

But while residents near the property had hoped for a development that would revitalize the neighborhood, they were disappointed by the current proposal, citing how it would displace local businesses like Taqueria Eduardo, and did not align with the urban village plan because it was not mixed-use, nor was it pedestrian-friendly and did not promote walking and the use of public transportation.

The pushback from housing advocates and residents was so fierce that more than 4,800 people had signed a petition opposing the development.

“I think most of us in this room would agree that a single-story fast food restaurant along a commercial and transit corridor that is car-centric and does not include housing in an area of the city where we want multi-story housing buildings … is not an outcome we want to see in our city,” Catalyze SV Executive Director Alex Shoor said.

But while the hearing officer approved the project in June, it came with a condition that an existing 3,817-square-foot building, which was being used by a restaurant and hair salon, needed to remain.

Zotta’s representatives filed two appeals for the project, including one that said the condition would make the project infeasible. Planning Director Chris Burton agreed and also noted that the city erred in not consulting with developers over how keeping the existing building would impact their project.

“Our misstep in that process was to not allow them that opportunity to respond,” Burton said. “We closed the public hearing, we added the condition and moved forward with the action, and thereby we didn’t have the full set of information as to what challenges are presented by adding that condition at the last minute to the permit.”

While he said he preferred a mixed-use and denser project, District 3 Councilmember Anthony Tordillos said there was nothing in the urban village plan that precluded the proposed use, even if it didn’t measure up to the ideals laid out in the vision.

District 10 Councilmember George Casey scolded the planning department, saying the issue was not that the applicants were not given the chance to respond, but rather that it imposed a condition like this in the first place.

“The idea that there’s no historical relevance to the property, the idea that we’re going to tell a landowner that they’ve got to keep a property that they don’t want, I’m apoplectic,” Casey said. “I’m not hearing how we’re going to make sure that never happens again, because it’s an embarrassment for companies that want to come do business in San Jose and have to go through this extra layer of rigmarole.”