Area Plans

Area Plans provide urban planning frameworks for larger areas of San José. These currently include:

Specific Plans 

Following extensive community and stakeholder engagement, the City Council has approved several Specific Plans for key locations in San José.

These plans aim to foster transit-oriented development, historic preservation, mixed uses, and sensitivity to surrounding neighborhoods. Specific Plans include a vision for future development with a detailed land use plan, design guidelines, and implementation strategy.

How Specific Plans relate to the General Plan. The Envision San José 2040 General Plan reflects the land uses designated within the Specific Plan areas (some very limited modification may occur). While a few of the Specific Plans have been fully implemented, several continue to provide important residential and/or job growth capacity for the vision of the General Plan.

Here are the approved Specific Plans:

• Alviso Master Plan
• Berryessa Swap Area Neighborhood Plan
• Communications Hill Specific Plan
• Evergreen Specific Plan
• Jackson-Taylor Specific Plan
• Martha Gardens Specific Plan
• Midtown Specific Plan
• Rincon South Specific Plan (Now an Approved Urban Village Plan)
• Silver Creek
• Tamien Station Area Specific Plan

How to Use Specific Plans

Development on properties within a Specific Plan boundary must follow the goals, objectives, guidelines, and policies of the corresponding Specific Plan.

To determine a property's land use designation, please disregard the Specific Plan Land Use Plan and instead use the General Plan Land Use Diagram. For example, if a property is designated as Mixed-Use within a Specific Plan but has a General Plan designation of Neighborhood/Community Commercial, then the Neighborhood/Community Commercial designation takes precedence.

economic development information of areas

In addition to formal Area Plans and Specific Plans, the City's Office of Economic Development & Cultural Affairs (OEDCA) discusses economic development opportunity in North, South, West, and East San José and a Downtown Vision (www.sanjoseca.gov/DowntownVision). View this information at www.SJEconomy.com.

CONTACT

For questions about Specific Plans, please email GeneralPlanStaff@sanjoseca.gov.

For questions about planning applications, general planning or zoning questions on a specific site, please email ZoningQuestions@sanjoseca.gov or speak with a City planner by calling 408-535-3555 during these service hours.