With the blessing of the San Mateo City Council, Caltrain will construct a railroad facility known as a set-out track between 10th and 14th avenues despite fierce pushback from nearby residents.

That location was Caltrain’s preference from the get-go, but over the past nine months it analyzed more than 30 alternative sites in response to neighborhood concerns about light and noise impacts as well as a potential decline in property values. Caltrain ultimately concluded that only the above location is feasible and that all proposed sites are either technically infeasible or are too expensive; one of the alternative sites favored by the community would have cost San Mateo taxpayers an additional $13 million, according to Caltrain.

San Mateo staff agreed with Caltrain’s conclusion earlier this year and at a meeting Wednesday so did the council.

“As fiscal stewards of the city it would seem we’re compelled to pursue the original location [between 10th and 14th avenues] rather than moving the track, which fiscally puts things out of reach for us,” Councilwoman Diane Papan said at the meeting.

Councilman Rick Bonilla recused himself from the meeting because he lives near the site in question.

Another alternative site favored by some in the community would displace a preschool and most councilmembers were unwilling to move forward with that option.

“I don’t find it palatable to close down a child care center,” said Mayor Joe Goethals. “Our community needs day care centers too much. … I feel like that’s the greatest need for the city of San Mateo to protect that child care center.”

A set-out track is a roughly 1,000-foot stretch of track adjacent to the main tracks used to store maintenance equipment and sometimes locomotives when they break down. Such a facility previously existed behind Ana Furniture, but was displaced by the 25th Avenue grade separation project. Its replacement must be in the same general area for the railroad to safely operate, Caltrain has said.

There are more than a dozen set-out tracks along the corridor and Caltrain officials say they’ve never received a complaint about any of them.

Caltrain plans to finish designing the set-out track within four months and the goal is to finish construction for the project along with the grade separation by spring of next year, said Caltrain spokesman Dan Lieberman.

In approving the aforementioned location, councilmembers were adamant that both Caltrain and the city must work with the neighborhood to sufficiently mitigate impacts. The plan is to have a $1.1 million wall and vegetation separate the set-out track from homes while access to the facility will be via Ninth Avenue.

“We’re happy to hear the set-out track will finally be moving forward and we will work to ensure that the concerns of our neighbors are addressed,” Lieberman said.

While the proposed mitigations are more than welcome now that the location has been decided, the neighbors are exceedingly frustrated with both the council and Caltrain for its handling of the decision-making process.

“I feel completely dismayed at how lacking this process has been, how little the residents were represented and considered,” said Cheryl Dean, a member of the Hayward Park neighborhood association. “If [the set-out track] couldn’t go in a completely commercial zone it only makes sense to put it in an area that would impact the least amount of residents, but they put it smack dab in the middle of Hayward Park, destroying our neighborhood.”

Hayward Park residents also regularly admonish Caltrain for neglecting to notify them about the set-out track during the environmental review phase of the project and for repeatedly changing their story about how the facility will be used.

“I’m disappointed with Caltrain. They’ve been completely disingenuous the entire way through,” said resident Mike Johnson.

Caltrain lately has maintained the set-out track will remain empty the vast majority of the time because its primary purpose is to be available for temporary storage of locomotives when they break down. But it has also said in the past that there would be loading and unloading activities at the facility in the middle of the night. Neighbors remain convinced those activities will routinely occur and keep them up at night.

Referencing the broken trust between Caltrain and the neighborhood, Deputy Mayor Eric Rodriguez suggested the city hire a third party to review Caltrain’s engineering analysis and ensure no other locations are feasible.

But Rodriguez’s colleagues did not express support for doing so and felt further analysis of the various proposed locations would accomplish nothing except delay the project and inflate its cost.

Councilwoman Amourence Lee noted that Caltrain and city staff as well as HDR engineering company, a contractor, have devoted hundreds of hours to studying all proposals for the project.

“The result of that analysis has been that no further analysis will make any alternative viable,” she said. “It’s hard for me to justify delaying a process and compounding costs if that analysis is already deemed unproductive and unjustified.”