What’s happening in North Sunnyvale is finally getting the attention it deserves.https://www.cbsnews.com/sanfrancisco/video/fair-oaks-plaza-in-sunnyvale-targeted-for-housing-as-questions-raised-over-loss-of-retail/
KPIX/CBS featured our concerns about the proposed redevelopment in a lead news segment, highlighting the harm it could bring to people in our community.
If this project moves forward as proposed, our San Miguel neighborhood could lose its only grocery store. Longstanding, minority-owned businesses face displacement. This isn’t responsible redevelopment, it’s a fast track to a food desert and a step toward deeper inequity.
We keep hearing the same refrain from city officials: “Talk to the developer.” And we have. But developers answer to profit margins, not public needs. When protections for essential services are missing from the start, communities like ours are left exposed.
This didn’t happen by accident.
The project was approved without clear, objective standards to protect North Sunnyvale. There were no guarantees for grocery access, no real safeguards for local businesses, and no plan to preserve the services residents rely on. City leaders have pointed to COVID, staffing changes, and shifting priorities to explain the gaps, but none of that changes the reality on the ground.
Now, those oversights are turning into real, visible harm.
People are right to be worried. Seniors and low-income families are at risk of losing the only accessible grocery store. Small business owners are stuck in limbo. And residents are being pushed to negotiate directly with developers, when the officials they elected should be leading the effort and delivering real, meaningful change.
If Sunnyvale truly values equity, it needs to act like it. That means:
1. Enforcing clear protections for essential services so communities aren’t left behind.
2. Offering meaningful incentives to retain grocery and community-serving retail on site.
3. Turning equity into law, not just a value statement with policies that protect, not just promise.
City leaders can’t keep falling back on what was “originally envisioned.” They need to take responsibility, respond to the community’s concerns, and make the necessary course corrections. Sunnyvale still has a chance to get this right, if it’s willing to break from a history of neglect and finally prioritize North Sunnyvale and its needs.
In solidarity,
North Sunnyvale Community