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The City Council held a workshop last week to discuss how the city could spur more affordable homes in Pleasanton, what that housing could look like and who should benefit the most from those new units.
While no direct action was taken during the Oct. 1 council meeting, it was the beginning of a conversation so that staff could come back at a later date with more fleshed out policy and program recommendations to push Pleasanton in the direction of offering more homes for those in need.
“If we can help a family get out of a RV and into housing, it’s life-changing — I’d love to see that happen,” Mayor Karla Brown said.
City housing manager Steve Hernandez said the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s definition of affordable housing is housing in which no more than 30% of gross income goes toward housing costs.
According to Hernandez, there are 1,267 affordable housing units currently in Pleasanton — 1,126 of which are rental units and the rest are ownership units. He further explained that 60% of those are occupied by senior citizens while the remaining 40% are occupied by other populations.
Community development director Ellen Clark explained how under the city’s ONE Pleasanton five-year strategic plan, one of the goals is to build a community where everyone belongs by ending homelessness and partnering with nonprofits developers to secure and develop affordable housing projects.
Clark said the city’s 2023-32 Housing Element — which was adopted and is being implemented to address affordable housing as well as housing in general — also has various policies to support the production of all levels of affordable housing.
In the past, the city used significant resources such as the low income housing fund to provide financial support to three housing projects: the 131-unit Kottinger Gardens Phase 1 senior housing development, the 54-unit Kottinger Gardens Phase 2 and the 31-unit Sunflower Hill at Irby Ranch development.
But as City Manager Gerry Beaudin explained, the city is now looking at furthering the city’s affordable housing plans as part of the overall strategic planning efforts. He said the reason for last week’s meeting was to lay down the groundwork to figure out what Pleasanton’s future plans will be regarding affordable housing and to figure out how the city should use its low-income fund dollars and other city resources.
He also pointed out that the fund is a dedicated source of funding that comes from in-lieu fees related to housing development applications, which means that money is not coming from the general fund and cannot be used for anything else other than supporting affordable housing.
Most of the evening’s conversation revolved around a handful of questions, with the first being what population or demographic the city wants to serve.
Hernandez pointed out that in the past, the city has focused on affordable housing for seniors and adults with developmental disabilities. While many on the council said they wanted to continue focusing on senior housing, they also pushed branching out to support low-income families.
Transitional housing was also another topic that councilmembers like Valerie Arkin wanted to further explore if it is attainable. Vice Mayor Julie Testa suggested that the city could look to churches as potential partners for transitional housing.
Councilmember Jeff Nibert also threw in veterans as a potential target demographic for affordable housing and Councilmember Jack Balch added that he wants to see more data on this topic — for example, he said the city’s alternative response unit could offer some perspective on transitional housing because they work closely with people on the streets experiencing homelessness.
But as Hernandez explained one of the main issues with building affordable housing is obviously the cost, which has a lot to do with what type of development is built.
There are two types of housing projects that the city is looking into: stick-built and quick-build projects.
Stick-built projects are brick-and-mortar developments that are permanent but typically take between 18 and 24 months to complete with a price-tag that can go all the way up to $100 million, Hernandez said.
Those typically best serve families with kids, he added.
Quick-build projects, on the other hand, are developments that could use modular construction, which is when portions of the building are constructed off site and then are delivered and put together at the site. Hernandez gave one example of a modular development that cost about $16 million, which is considerably less than permanent housing.
However, he added that those types of developments have been used in the Bay Area more to address transitional housing needs because those units tend to be better for individuals or couples who need immediate help.
“It’s (constructed) quickly and you meet an urgent need,” Clark said. “Folks who are living in their cars or in a tent in Pleasanton, they have an urgent need for housing and so it solves that need quickly — and it solves it at a considerably lower cost but the tradeoff is that you’re not getting the permanent units in the community.”
Staff did say however that those modular homes could be permanent housing if done right, which means the real question for the council will be whether they want permanent housing that will cost more and take longer to build or if they want temporary housing — which could also become permanent — built quicker and at a cheaper cost.
Balch also said that the council should be looking at different options other than those presented that night. He said as a government, they have the power to look at zoning and can even forego some design standards if it meant being able to provide affordable housing
“We could make cheaper housing if we didn’t require four-sided architecture; we could make cheaper housing if we didn’t require sidewalks and completed streets,” Balch said. “I’m not saying we want to (do that), but when I think about zoning and what is in our control, those are things that we dictate as a city council.”
But in the end the consensus from the council was pretty much the same: use low income housing funds to support these future projects, look at possibly waiving fees for developers to encourage them to build more affordable homes and continuing to support other existing programs.
The only real point where Brown and Testa didn’t see eye-to-eye was affordability.
Testa originally went into the meeting thinking she didn’t want to see 100% affordability but changed her mind when she saw the developments in the city that are 100% affordable and how beneficial those projects were to residents.
Brown, on the other hand, said she didn’t want to go over 50% affordable because she believes the best option is mixed-housing projects that include market rate and affordable housing units so that people don’t feel secluded if they need the lower-priced units.
“I just don’t want anybody … to feel like they’re living on the wrong side of the tracks,” Brown said.
