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A potential five-story, mixed-use building on the edge of downtown Pleasanton that drew protest from some residents was rejected as proposed last month, according to city officials.
Had the project application been approved as presented, a 48,000-square-foot building with 3,000 square feet of retail space and 37 units of almost entirely lower-income housing would have been constructed at 4884 Harrison St., near the Pleasanton Public Library, with only ministerial review allowed beforehand.
Community development director Ellen Clark told the Weekly that staff’s rejection was “based on a conclusion that the project does not qualify for ministerial approval because it was found to be inconsistent with both applicable government code — requirements for approval under SB 35 and the Housing Density Bonus provisions of state law — and local objective standards, or that more information is required to demonstrate compliance.”
A petition drive that took place downtown for the statewide “Our Neighborhood Voices” (ONV) initiative on Jan. 29, and was also supported and promoted by Pleasanton City Councilmember Julie Testa, focused partly on the now-rejected Harrison Street project. Similar signature collection events were also held by the Tri-Valley branch of United Neighbors in Livermore on Jan. 29 and 30.
The signature collections last month were for the statewide ballot initiative 21-0016A1, which aims to amend the California Constitution so that if a conflict arose, local zoning and land-use ordinances would supersede state laws.
Among the most controversial of the 70 state housing-related laws targeted by the ballot initiative are Senate Bills 9 and 10, which were signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom last year and went into effect on Jan. 1.
If certain conditions are satisfied, SB 9 allows property owners to split and develop duplexes on single-family residential lots without local approval, while SB 10 allows the construction of apartment buildings with up to 10 units on a site zoned single-family dwelling without local agency approval, if it is close to mass transit or an urban infill site.
Flyers distributed for the ONV signature drive with renderings of the Harrison Street proposal, claiming that the five-story building was “coming soon”, said that “state law has severely limited the city’s input, timeline, and discretion to deny” similar applications, and that “the state legislature has passed many laws allowing massive buildings in our historic downtown.”
Councilmember Jack Balch said the project proposal came to the city much earlier and was working through the consideration process, though, and he is “not sure it would’ve been approved or denied anyway because it was in the hopper.”
“Harrison Street and the local control initiative, it’s just a confluence that they are an unfortunate series of events that are (happening) at the same time,” Balch said. “I think local control proponents are saying they’re going to use it to overturn these laws if they have to.”
Balch said he has “serious questions” about the California Environmental Quality Act and discrimination laws when it comes to the ONV initiative, noting that the city was sued over a housing cap about 15 years ago.
“When we put in the housing cap, we were sued as a city and settled, and admitted the housing cap was discriminatory,” Balch said. “If this local control goes through, who’s protecting others from discrimination?”
Though the Harrison Street project did not qualify for ministerial approval under SB 35, including failing to address issues about fire department access and sidewalk width, Balch said the applicant “could resubmit if they modified the application to comply … but they have to design their project to comply with the state.”
More than half a million signatures statewide were already gathered before the collection events took place in the Tri-Valley last month. A total of 1.5 million signatures are required for the ballot initiative to be included in the November general election.
SB35 projects will be re-designed, litigated like Valco mall development in Cupertino. No doubt CA needs more housing and I strongly believe this project should have been approved if the conditions are met. Aging is inevitable, you can apply all kinds of creams, you can’t stop it. Growth of the city is inevitable and so the housing needs. We can’t box ourselves. Hopefully more infill housing will be carried out. Stay safe and heathy..
I would say BULL. This type of project should not be allowed near downtown. As a resident of Pleasanton I personally would not like any further growth of low income housing!
A five story building with no parking should not be allowed in Pleasanton, especially when what the downtown area needs is more parking.
Not only does a 5 story not belong in our historic downtown, but add to that the fact that there is no parking for the residents. Given that each residential unit may own 2 cars. The number of parking spaces downtown is less than the number that would be used by the residents of this building and the business owners. That most probably would lead to the failure of many of our downtown businesses. Then what might happen to all those buildings that are left vacant? There are far too many negative effects for this 5 story building to go forward. Many of us moved to Pleasanton because our quaint downtown captured our hearts.
The lack of parking in a design in todays day and era where full sustainability needs to be considered is mind blowing to me. Why is it ok to make something like that the communities problem for a residential unit?!
California Senate Bill 35 (SB 35) is a statute streamlining housing construction in California counties and cities that fail to build enough housing to meet state mandated housing construction requirements. If Pleasanton had met its mandated requirements, which we zoned for in our last Housing Element, the Harrison Street project could not have been proposed under SB35.
I believe the project is a bit too much, but I understand it. My first home in Pleasanton 40 years ago was on Harrison, right across the street from the proposed project. I don’t know about now, but then that area was the affordable, working class, side of downtown. Harrison St. has mostly multi family buildings including an apartment building next door to my old house. Many of the single family homes have added additional units in their backyards.
The Harrison site is zoned multi use, so it’s likely that a developer would add commercial. It’s across the tracks from the Ace train stop, close to downtown, schools, and shopping so it’s residents might not need a car. More affordable housing for our essential workers, teachers, etc. is sorely needed so it would help meet that need.
I don’t think the concept is unreasonable.
While I agree with Jocelyn this proposed 5 story building is simply out of scale with the area. Frankly too much squeezed onto the property. Maybe a well designed three story but it may not be enough reasonable profit for anyone to develop given land and construction prices.
Future planning strategies need to change dramatically in the US for both housing and infrastructure. Zoning has always been revolved around the use of cars and that needs to stop. The suburban sprawl, the obsession of owning single family homes is devastating to the social and economic divide, together with the environmental impacts we are witnessing today. Of course everyone wants to live the ‘American dream’ but we are all living well beyond the means of what the environment can support. This project may look out of touch with the city as it is now but the city is really out of touch with the the general movement of urban planning. I do agree that because of decades of bad planning around the locality of services and commerce, ‘getting around town’ is much harder than it should (without a car). The city need to invest more on public transit and bike/alternate infrastructure – look to the Europeans. In the future we need much more of these affordable, multi-use housing so citizens can live, shop, and work much more locally, creating more integrated and vibrant communities, eliminating the need for yet more heat-absorbing, polluting, space-wasting, eye-sore patches of asphalt. The city is wonderful and quaint but I do believe we can integrate more modern forms of housing that can complement it, to grow and offer housing to key workers who are essential to the fabric of our communities.
This is for the generations to come.
City Council meeting 02/08/2022:
Nearly all of the city sites under consideration for development to meet state requirements will bull dose multiple small businesses that serve this Pleasanton community. With the state requirements in place, there will be no small business services available for this Pleasanton community.
The two entrenched nimbies on the council, Testa and Arkin are all out to rid this community of those small businesses. They want to increase the already 1500 units, under development, and slated for development at Stoneridge and other locations. This flies in the face with traffic engineers stating, those streets and arteries are maxed out cannot support current traffic.
City council of Pleasanton is not in favor of infill development. They could have got done by spreading the development by means of infill development embracing SB9 and SB10 state laws. Rather they want to go put rules(rather bad rules), so that any NO one can use them and build new houses. They have put too many standards to meet for any home owner can build and produce new SFH homes. The result is few tall and high dense buildings and clogging the approach roads/byways to these sites. Every one in the city will be affected in one way or other. If any one believed of what Pleasanton is, please vote for infill development, not for tall and high dense buildings, that changes the city for good, for ever. SAVE PLEASANTON…Need new city council.
I have watched several of the housing element meetings over the last weeks and commend the Mayor and City Council members for all their hard work to follow the State’s RHNA requirements for rezoning many of properties around town for residential use. This is not a task that any of them take lightly as everyone in Pleasanton will feel the impact of these housing increases on our streets, in our schools, our water needs and the loss of local control over planning. Many land owners have asked to be rezoned to residential use and the Council has met with, emailed and pondered over these concerns for many hours. I came away with a very different impression of the efforts of Vice Mayor Arkin and Council Member Testa than was posted by Michael Austin. They seemed to be trying to preserve neighborhoods from the impacts of the housing demands by putting the bulk of the residential zoning closer to jobs such as at the Stoneridge Mall Area.
Mr. Austin, before you throw anyone under the bus on the Council or provide misinformation about what they said at the meetings in a public forum have you reached out to email them in person? Have you raised a question at the Council meeting in a respectful manner? Name calling isn’t a solution to a problem. Respectful dialogue and understanding would serve the community and readers of this blog much better.
Anonymous posters have no credibility.
The Council meeting, I participated in, Both Testa and Arkin asked for the Donlon site to be removed from the list. Arkin especially wanted to pack more units into Stoneridge. Pleasant Hill, Muirwood neighborhoods will be impacted with the Stoneridge units. Their opposition to Donlon development they said was from the Nimbies they received feedback remove Donlon.
James – show me a successful urban utopia in the US. Even in Europe while I appreciate and enjoyed visiting the urban neighborhoods I have no desire to live in such density and chaos.
There’s nothing wrong with wanting space, and not having a zero lot line.
This is a rare situation where I agree with Michael Austin. The high-density zoning and high-tech offices near Stoneridge Mall, the Tommy T’s site, and Costco will make northwest Pleasanton a waste zone. Let’s not forget that the so-called affordable housing will become market rate housing for tech workers. Now the city wants to take away a significant portion of Muirwood Park and hand it over to economic special interests for a cricket field despite neighborhood outcry.
The RHNA process exists only to benefit the high-tech industry and state and local government’s quest for never ending economic growth. Never ending growth on a finite planet is impossible. We need to rethink our economic models for our very survival.
City Council – this could be a place to start: https://doughnuteconomics.org/about-doughnut-economics