Single Family Home in Planned Development Zoning

[Allen Bo]

I own an SFH in R-1-8-PD (Planned Development) zoning in San Jose. We recently submitted an application for adding the second floor to the building. The Building department approved the plans, but the Planning department came back citing the original permit for the Planned Development zoning that there are no additions allowed. They suggested to go through a public hearing to amend that and pay $13k in fees, though that doesn't guarantee the changing of the original permit.

The other interesting thing I found about my property was that the previous owner added 100sqft in 1996 with all the city permits. I'm not sure how that happened given the above situation.

What are my choices? I'm a bit reluctant to go the public hearing route since it would involve amending the permit for the entire community and it can take a long time (a year or more) and even then at the end I might not succeed.

Has anyone came across similar situation and able to resolve it? I would appreciate any information.