From the parking lot, there’s nothing to suggest that Quito Village is the California housing policy equivalent of a unicorn, or that the seemingly low-key project is sitting at the center of one of this year’s biggest political fights.
Peek through one of the gates of this dirt lot in the San Jose suburb of Saratoga. Trenches, a few foundations and an excavator pawing at a mountain of dirt are the only indication that, if all goes to plan, this will be the site of 90 new townhouses next year.
But though it may not be obvious — even to one of its developers, who was surprised to hear the news — this easy-to-ignore housing development appears to be one of a kind.
What makes Quito Village unique dates to early 2020 when Sand Hill Property Company agreed to follow a strict labor standard, promoted by some of the state’s most powerful organized labor groups, that favors the hiring of union workers. The Silicon Valley real estate developer did so to take advantage of a 2017 state law meant to speed the construction of dense housing.
Atlanta-based real estate giant PulteGroup took over the project in 2022 and began construction in September. That makes Quito Village the only known project in California that has broken ground under the law’s union-hiring rule.
Now lawmakers are debating making that 2017 law permanent, but with a bill that would strike out the union-backed labor standard that Sand Hill agreed to take on for the Saratoga project.
For many Democrats in the...
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