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The Pleasanton Planning Commission approved a resolution last week that would rezone two churches in the city to allow for the construction of up to 10 housing units in portions of their properties.
The churches in question are Trinity Lutheran Church at 1225 Hopyard Road and Rock Bible Church at 4100 First St.
According to staff, rezoning both these properties will allow the city to meet its Housing Element implementation goal of identifying sites that could be rezoned and provide an opportunity to build 20 new units. The Housing Element, which the council adopted in 2023, describes how the city would meet its state-mandated Regional Housing Needs Allocation of 5,965 new residential units — 2,758 of which are targeted toward lower-income households.
“We’re implementing a program of our Housing Element which includes city commitments to undertake certain actions — in this case, these two rezonings,” Pleasanton community and economic development director Ellen Clark told commissioners June 24.
Commissioner Anurag Jain was absent from the meeting, and Commissioner Ken Morgan recused himself because he is a member of Trinity Lutheran Church and said he had some involvement as a resource.
Shweta Bonn, a senior planner with the city, said the city analyzed five different sites from a list of 22 considered properties, which included the two churches. Bonn said the city reached out to the property owners and most were either neutral or supportive of the proposed rezoning, mainly because the rezoning does not affect existing operations.
Both of the churches were considered over the three other properties because, apart from the geography and juxtaposition with surrounding neighborhoods, the two churches showed active interest in pursuing housing development, according to Bonn.
The rezoning, Bonn said, would primarily add to the development capacity should the property owners decide to develop the property in the future. The development and design standards for those potential future development sites would be established by a planned unit development plan that would be submitted in the future.
She also clarified that the city wouldn’t be creating two separate lots within the property but would instead be splitting the zoning in order to achieve the 10 units.
She and other staff noted how for Trinity, which is over 3 acres large, this could prove to be a good location for future housing, should the church choose to pursue that option.
“That site is basically unutilized,” Derek Farmer, assistant director of community and economic development, said of the Trinity Lutheran Church. “You can tell that it’s just kind of being left there. It’s a perfect site.”
Steve Wright, a treasurer at Trinity Lutheran Church, told the commission during public comment the church is in fact “very supportive of this opportunity to rezone a portion of the property”.
He said the church used to operate a preschool on site until it closed because it wasn’t “financially feasible”. He said the modular classrooms were removed about a year ago, which has left the church wondering what it should do with the empty land.
“We haven’t quite decided what to do with it yet, but this would help us a lot with our future discussions,” Wright said. “Lutheran churches throughout the country, and even California, have gotten together with nonprofit developers to do low-income housing — sometimes senior-only housing — and that kind of thing.”
Wright said with the commission’s approval, the church would “start really zeroing in on some of that”.
No representative of Rock Bible Church spoke that night before the commission voted 3-0 to approve the resolution.
