Longtime customers and business owners pressed Pulte Homes and city staff during a Santa Clara community meeting over the developer’s plan to replace a commercial plaza with housing, saying the proposal would displace small businesses that serve the area’s Asian community and remove neighborhood services.

Melissa Poppy, who identified herself as a frequent customer, said the plaza is “more than just a place to shop” and warned that reconstruction would reduce parking and increase traffic that could force small businesses to close. “It is a place for, where people get a shop to eat, to get herbal treatment and support local business, which provide essential services and a sense of protection that can't be replicated by residential buildings,” she said.

Another attendee said the proposed retail footprint — roughly 5,000 square feet — “won’t even accommodate the grocery store.” Speakers described long‑running tenants such as a postal outlet and small clinics that serve customers who rely on walking access.

Jim Sullivan, representing Pulte, and city staff responded that the property owner elected to pursue redevelopment and that Pulte was following the city’s general plan and zoning for neighborhood commercial mixed use. Sullivan said developer plans were constrained by those rules and by market realities; he told the meeting the company “has no flexibility in increasing the commercial space.”

City staff framed the meeting within California’s RHNA process. Akshan, identified during the meeting as director of community development, said the city is in its sixth RHNA cycle and that state laws passed since about 2017 aim to increase housing production. “If we don't have a, certified housing element ... the state is taking local control away,” he said, describing builder’s‑remedy enforcement and citing other cities that faced legal pressure.

Not all attendees opposed the project. Jeff Houston, who said he lives within walking distance, urged the city and developer to include more affordable units than the minimum and to continue dialogue: “We need to build more housing in Santa Clara,” he said.

City staff and the developer said additional community meetings and the formal public‑hearing process will follow; environmental studies will examine traffic, greenhouse gas and other impacts before any final approvals are scheduled.