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Housing — and the need for more of it — has become a top political and economic issue in California, and Pleasanton could be a target for state mandates once again.
So says Scott Raty, president and CEO of the Pleasanton Chamber of Commerce: “This year, we’re going to see continued pressure from the state for local municipalities to meet housing objectives that are statewide.”
Pleasanton offers a good example of what state mandates mean for a city.
Over the last three years, high-density apartment complexes have been built on some of the 70 acres the council rezoned to meet numbers imposed by the state’s Regional Housing Needs Assessment (RHNA) and requirements by a Superior Court judge and state housing authorities.
That followed a lawsuit the city lost to an Oakland-based affordable housing coalition over a 1996 voter-approved 29,000 housing cap which, the court ruled, discriminated against those who want to live here but can’t find affordable housing.
Now, Raty points out, the housing issue — at least as far as Pleasanton is concerned — has moved out of the courtroom and to Sacramento.
In an attempt to address the state’s housing shortage, lawmakers introduced more than 130 bills during the 2017 legislative session, with many focused on constraining local land-use authority or eliminating local discretion.
A total of 15 bills made it into the “housing package” and were signed by Gov. Jerry Brown. Among these is a $4 billion general obligation bond on the November ballot that would fund so-called workforce (affordable) housing. Another would impose new, onerous real estate recording fees on a permanent, ongoing basis. It’s projected to generate hundreds of millions of dollars annually for affordable housing.
Although most of this money won’t do much to make housing more affordable, the legislation now on the books includes measures to force cities like Pleasanton to make land available for more high-density housing.
Legislation (Senate Bill 35) by State Sen. Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco) provides the California Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD) new broad authority to make sure cities meet their “fair share” affordable housing requirements. It also requires that developers pay prevailing (union) wages.
“SB 35 shuts down critical local input on housing and its effects on local communities, and unnecessarily adds to the cost of housing with rigid state mandates,” said Assemblywoman Catharine Baker (R-San Ramon).
Raty believes Pleasanton should lock up available residential land with acceptable zoning and development plans before RHNA requirements take hold. That includes the East Side, where three years ago the City Council halted a task force’s planning for this largely empty 400-acre site that, if developed, could have included more than 800 homes.
Since then, developer Steve Dunn of SteelWave has met with Alameda County authorities on his plan to build 200 homes on the unincorporated part of that site. That could encourage the state’s HCD to add the rest of the East Side to its list of new housing mandates for Pleasanton.
Although a chief reason the task force study was halted was because, at that time, new RHNA requirements wouldn’t take hold before 2023, recently approved legislation now gives RHNA authority to review housing needs on an annual basis.
That means that it might be time to restart the East Side planning so that Pleasanton is ahead of the pack before state mandates hit us again.
“In 2018, we’re going to see continued pressure from the state for local municipalities to meet housing objectives that are statewide,” Raty warns. “With the state’s continued emphasis on housing, we need to return to a discussion about the East Side before Gov. (Jerry) Brown decides what’s the best use of that acreage.”
Editor’s note: Jeb Bing is editor emeritus for the Pleasanton Weekly. His “Around Pleasanton” columns run on the second and fourth Fridays of every month.
Editor’s note: Jeb Bing is editor emeritus for the Pleasanton Weekly. His “Around Pleasanton” columns run on the second and fourth Fridays of every month.
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Where is Matt Sullivan and Julie Testa on this issue? Let’s have a vote.
Oh, it used to be that those who purchased a home in an affordable housing development, mostly unwittingly, paid for the affordable units with higher prices. Is it not ironic that affordable housing has made housing un-affordable? The silver lining is that social engineers can now jigger it so that all Californians now have to pay for affordable housing.
The State is a huge part of housing shortage due to CEQA and the ” environmental ” agencies the State created to PREVENT the construction of more housing. Agencies such as Regional Air Quality, Regional Water Board, Fish & Wildlife usually increase delays, add cost, and stymie homes and commerce and SELDOM add quality to a project. The State regulates and stymies and seldom aids progress- think Southern Crossing Bay Bridge that was planned in 60’s for 70’s construction.
Why would we pay more tax money to the people that create the problem.
NO MORE TAX MONEY FOR THEM TO WASTE.
How come we get all the heat for not having affordable housing and Marin county has gotten away without offering any?
Fortunately in response to NIMBYs , past City Councils kicked the can down the street for years if not decades to not build housing and now we have the State ready to impose regional government regulations ursurping local controls. In order to meet fair share mandates, the remaining limited land has to be built with much higher densities. What a shame when housing could have been planned to blend and mix into surrounding areas instead. The State has a huge housing shortage which is driving younger people away. People will continue to come here though and put more pressure on cities. For those who have lived here like us for 30 years, we are surprised that we are more flexibile and understanding of growth than people who buy new houses in town and moved here within the past few years. Of course there are also those people who think the good old days were actually good.
Bella: Some thought that the “fair share mandates” were Big Brotherism. I still do. How did housing go from suggestions from ABAG (Association of Bay Area Governments a volunteer organization that became “quasi governmental”) to state mandates? Progressives said it was one less troublesome thing for city councils to deal with. They would do it all—after all, they know know how to do this housing stuff better than the local yokels. We should all be happy because our own council can go back to cutting ribbons and policing dog parks.