SAN JOSE — A big mixed-use development is being eyed in north San Jose, an ambitious project that developers tout as a live-work complex of offices, homes and retail which could help ease the region’s traffic woes.

Sand Hill Property, the developer and owner of the project site, has requested a preliminary review of a proposal for 505,000 square feet of offices, 800 residential units and 13,000 square feet of retail on 9.3 acres at the southwest corner of North First Street and Orchard Parkway in San Jose.

“We are looking at a jobs-housing balance with this project,” said Steve Lynch, director of planning and entitlement with Palo Alto-based Sand Hill Property. “This is a significant site right on the light rail line.”

The proposal is in the very preliminary stages and is being floated as a way for Sand Hill and San Jose city officials to consider what sort of project would work at that location. The early stage review is occurring amid a wide-ranging effort by San Jose to establish guidelines for future development in the area.

North First Street is a heavily traveled route with a light rail line and a diverse array of tech companies.

“What Sand Hill is talking about is a mix of offices and residential, with some retail along North First Street,” said Patrick Kelly, a supervising planner with the city of San Jose. “It would be a transit employment center.”

Although considerable review of the proposal is still needed even in this preliminary stage, it’s possible this type of development conforms with the sorts of projects San Jose officials envision in the area, Kelly said.

“We don’t want to upset the apple cart and we want to work with the city on this,” Lynch said. “What the city is trying to do is bring more jobs to North First Street.”

Sand Hill’s proposal could bolster such efforts. Using some commonly accepted employment ratios, the office buildings in the development could accommodate 2,000 to 2,500 workers.

“What we are talking about here is a middle-urban live-work environment,” Lynch said. “The residences would be workforce housing.”

San Jose, the Bay Area’s largest city, is battling to add jobs at a faster pace than it gains residents. For decades, San Jose has emerged as the bedroom community for cities such as Menlo Park, Palo Alto, Cupertino, Mountain View, Sunnyvale and Santa Clara that have raced to embrace more tech jobs, but have sauntered to build housing to accommodate the increasing squadrons of workers in their cities.

“What Sand Hill is proposing is the type of development that needs to be the norm, being so close to transit,” said Bob Staedler, principal executive with Silicon Valley Synergy, a land-use and planning consultancy. “This type of big mixed-use project is what people are hoping for. San Jose needs to grow up and not out.”

The unbalanced employment and housing dynamic has shoved a fast-expanding Silicon Valley workforce into brutal commutes that can grind on for hours in each direction. Plus, tech titans such as Google, Apple, Facebook and Amazon, through combinations of office leases and property purchases, have been adding huge new sites for their operations.

San Jose is attempting to encourage more villages that contain offices, homes and retail in the same development — and near current or future significant transit hubs or stops — as a way to ease people out of their cars and to offer workplaces near their homes.

One such ambitious effort is Google’s transit-oriented community proposed for downtown San Jose’s Diridon Station area, where 15,000 to 20,000 of the search giant’s employees could work in a transit-oriented community that would also include residences, shops, restaurants and open spaces.

With its North First Street and Orchard Parkway project, Sand Hill Property hopes to place the jobs in the development as close as possible to on-site housing. This way the project could offer both residents and workers direct access to a speedy light rail system, Lynch said.

“This could be a new model for development going forward,” Lynch said.