A large swath of San Jose encompassing the North Willow Glen, Gregory Plaza and Gardner neighborhoods is another step closer to securing historic status.

The San Jose Historic Landmarks Commission unanimously voted Dec. 6 to grant historic status to the Greater Gardner neighborhood, something residents have sought for more than a decade.

Within the neighborhood’s boundaries of Interstate 80, Highway 87, Willow Street and Bird Avenue stands more than a century’s worth of local architecture such as old farmhouses that give a nod to San Jose’s agricultural roots and an assortment of Victorians and Craftsman bungalows, as well as contemporary dwellings.

Under the neighborhood’s new status, remodeling of homes with noted historic features would need to follow San Jose’s single-family historic guidelines.

At the request of residents like Jeremy Taylor who live outside the proposed territory–west of Bird Avenue and on the north side of the railroad tracks–the commission also recommended that the San Jose City Council consider adding those neighborhoods to the historic area. Taylor said he has been celebrating since the meeting and is hopeful that the council will agree with the commission.

“We pretty much turned things around for the Gardner neighborhood,” Taylor said, adding the neighbors plan to commission a study soon that hopefully will buttress the case for including their neighborhood in the historical designation. Residents would like to see the council approve the request as a gesture of goodwill, he added.

“We’re trying to build a case because we do feel like we’re correcting a wrong,” he said, referring to the community division created by the rail tracks. “We feel things were done incorrectly before. We’re cleaning up a mess; this all used to be one neighborhood and by stopping at the train tracks, all it did was create these artificial boundaries.”

Councilwoman Dev Davis, who represents District 6 and lives in North Willow Glen, attended the meeting and told the Resident that the criteria would be different. The areas requesting inclusion played a vital role in local history but may fall short of the city’s requirements, she noted.

“The criteria that North Willow Glen went through was about the buildings specifically, like the architecture of the neighborhood and the historical significance of the area,” Davis said. “The rest of the area might fit as far as historical significance, but…they don’t meet the architectural criteria for their time period.”

Historic preservation officer Susan Walsh told the Resident those areas “most likely could qualify as a conservation area.”

“It would be a second conservation area based on its history,” Walsh said. “It’s historic as well, it just doesn’t meet some of the other criteria that pertain to architectural structures.”

Taylor said 56 properties in Taylor’s neighborhood are in line for analysis but the area’s overall historic housing stock was recorded at only 57 percent.

“As a general rule that historians follow, approximately 75 percent of residences in the area should maintain their integrity to their historic period and have a strong sense of cohesiveness,” Walsh said.

Staff will return early next year and “try to come up with some ideas for better protection” of those other neighborhoods.

Taylor said he’s confident the council will nevertheless include his neighborhood. Related Articles Neighbors want to expand historic Gardner area

Historic homes in Greater Gardner area could be headed for preservation

“We think that the City Council will vote it in,” he said. “If they didn’t vote it in, we’d be pretty disappointed. Why would they not?”