With San Jose’s first BART station finally slated to open later this year, the city is moving forward with plans to design a dense “urban village” that could feature some tall towers in the Berryessa neighborhood surrounding the stop.

By 2030, the station is expected to carry 25,000 riders every day in an area city planners want to see developed into a vibrant, walkable community with thousands of offices, homes and shops. But some residents are worried the suburban neighborhood they call home — full of single-family homes, squat strip malls, the sprawling San Jose Flea Market and some industrial land — will force city life upon them.

“I think development is an inevitability. I see the need. I understand people are drawn to that,” said Betsy Bare, who has lived for four decades just east of the station in a single-family home on a quiet street. “But I’m not drawn to that.”

While Bare and her neighbors might have some say over what gets built in the area, she is right that more houses and more jobs are almost certainly on their way.

The city’s General Plan calls for adding 22,000 jobs and 4,800 homes within urban village boundaries, loosely from Shore Drive in the north to Mabury Road in the south, and from Coyote Creek on the west side east to Lundy Avenue.

To meet those goals, the city is considering office towers near the station that could rise as high as 18 stories, with a series of shorter buildings for more housing, offices and retail spreading out from BART. Parks, trails, public art and other public amenities would be interspersed throughout the neighborhood.

“It changes entirely what you are used to seeing,” Charla Gomez, a planner with the city, acknowledged during a second community meeting Thursday evening to gather feedback and input from local residents.

There is no firm urban village plan yet, and won’t be for some time. A third community meeting is set to take place later this year, and the City Council is tentatively scheduled to vote on a plan next summer, meaning most major construction is years off. Although the city can’t force a property owner to redevelop, it can establish guidelines that developers will have to follow.

Already, the area is shifting, though. A housing development is rising on the north side of the old flea market site, and construction is expected to begin this summer on a shopping center anchored by Safeway and CVS. And the Bumb family, which owns the flea market site, is working on a proposal to add jobs and housing to the southern side of the property that would fit within the final guidelines.

“Existing residents should view this as an opportunity to live near an interesting place with new parks, new shopping, new restaurants and entertainment,” said Erik Schoennauer, a land use consultant working for the Bumb family and the Facchino family, which together own the bulk of the available acreage in the urban village area. “This has been a long time coming.”

But Schoennauer also wants the city to consider the economy.

“It’s important that the plan’s job density heights and housing density heights are achievable in the marketplace,” he said. “If the plan overshoots what the market will build, then nothing will get constructed.”

At the meeting Thursday, residents of the area voiced similar concerns.

And a number said that bringing so many people there without addressing infrastructure issues will cause major traffic headaches. The two-lane bridge over Penitencia Creek on King Road between Berryessa and Mabury roads is already clogged and needs to be widened, many said. Getting on and off Highway 101 in the area is already a challenge.

Councilman Lan Diep, who represents the area and attended the meeting, said the city would like to widen the bridge. But a flood risk management study of the upper part of the creek stalled in 2016 when the Army Corps of Engineers and the Santa Clara Valley Water District couldn’t agree on a viable plan, said Craig Conner, with the Army Corps, during a phone interview Friday. The water district is still considering the possibility of expanding the bridge as part of a flood control measure, but it isn’t likely to get wider anytime soon and any project would likely have to go back to the Army Corps for approval. Officials are looking at the interchange, Diep said, but any improvement is years away.

While he wanted the meeting to be a forum for residents to share their “fears and concerns,” Diep said, he also hopes they will think about the long-term future of the neighborhood.

“We’re trying to build a San Jose for our children and grandchildren,” the councilman said.

At the meeting, dozens of people gathered around tables to discuss the urban village and later reported back to the group. Some said they’d like to see retail, restaurants and activities that draw people to the station area at night so the neighborhood doesn’t turn into a “dead zone” susceptible to increased crime after office workers depart.

Others said if tall buildings are coming, they’d like them to have a softer feel than some of the newer, glass buildings downtown, which could also protect birds from flying into a reflective surface and getting hurt. There were requests for a farmers market and concerns both about office workers from elsewhere traipsing through quiet residential streets and about the station creating an impenetrable barrier between neighbors.

“We got really good feedback,” said Gomez, the city planner. “I think we hear you loud and clear.”

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When she moved in, Bare remembers, the orchards that made San Jose the Valley of Heart’s Delight still dotted the area. Those are long gone and more change is coming. Berryessa will be BART’s first foray into the city.

“We’re on the cutting edge,” Bare said. “I’m really hoping that blend of urban and suburban lifestyles can happen smoothly.”