Google gets approval for megacampus in San Jose

Google finally got approval from the San Jose city council on Tuesday to build its planned mega campus which had been in the works for the past four years.

Construction may begin as soon as 2022, but the campus was still expected to take around a decade to fully build.

For its “Downtown West” project, Google plans to develop 80 acres of land in downtown San Jose, including 7.3m square feet of office space for 20,000 workers and thousands of housing units.

The approval comes as Google aims to shift away from closed-off tech campuses in order to stem the growing alienation toward tech companies, the success of which had made affordable housing in the Silicon Valley area scarce.

The Downtown West campus will include 4,000 housing units, 1,000 of which will be designated for a range of "affordable" housing.

Google was also planning another massive, town-like hub just 10 miles up the road in Mountain View.

"We'd like to thank the City and community for years of engagement and true partnership," said Google’s San Jose Development Director Alexa Arena in a statement issued on Tuesday night.

"Together, we have created a foundation for an equitable and environmentally focused place that represents the best of San Jose and Google," she added.

"There’s tremendous mistrust of the government and suspicion of Big Tech and it could have been easy for many of our community members to simply succumb to slogans and simplistic thinking but thousands rolled up their sleeves,” San Jose mayor Sam Liccardo said at Tuesday’s meeting.

“Rather than jump in one camp or another, community members pushed and prodded, and urged the city and Google to stretch and reach higher.”