Council to hold special meeting tonight to adopt affordable housing plan

The Pleasanton City Council will hold a special meeting at 7 p.m. tonight to wrap up consideration of a new affordable housing plan and to adopt a Climate Action Plan that will add new environmental regulations in the city.

Tonight’s meeting is expected to conclude nearly two years of community meetings, Housing Task Force deliberations and public workshops and hearings by both the council and the city’s Planning Commission to satisfy affordable, high-density housing requirements imposed by the state Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD) and an Alameda County Superior Court judge.

To meet those requirements that Pleasanton provide more affordable, workforce housing, the City Council last month rezoned nine sites throughout the city to allow multifamily residential development.

By adopting the updated so-called Housing Element as a part of the city’s General Plan, the council tonight will meet all of the court-ordered requirements under a settlement agreement both with the court and Urban Habitat, an affordable housing coalition that successfully sued the city to force the rezoning and to end a 1996 voter-approved cap of 29,000 housing units in the city.

Tonight’s consideration of a Climate Action Plan (CAP) is a continuation of the council’s regular meeting last Tuesday. Final approval of the CAP and adoption of an amendment to make it a part of the city’s General Plan air quality and climate change element is expected to satisfy demands by the state attorney general’s office, which at the time was headed by now-Governor Jerry Brown.

The plan focuses on reducing greenhouse gas emissions by requiring, among other steps, resource efficient landscaping in new residential and commercial developments, energy efficient hot water distribution systems, high efficiency toilets and other low-flow plumbing fixtures, and high efficiency heating and cooling systems.

The new requirements also include installing pre-plumbing on all new buildings to allow for solar water heating, wiring conduit for future photovoltaic systems and the installation of Energy Star designated appliances.

Where feasible, the CAP wants builder to incorporate solar roofs into commercial developments to meet 12.5% of the building’s annual energy usage. Where feasible, new residential units also should be built solar-ready.

The Pleasanton plan has been approved by the Bay Area Air Quality Management District.

“The city has clearly made a significant commitment to climate protection through (its) Climate Action Pan and the many climate-friendly policies and programs it has implemented to date,” Jean Roggenkamp, deputy air pollution control officer for the BAAQMD wrote in a letter to Janice Stern, assistant director of Pleasanton’s community development department.

“The district looks forward to working with the city of Pleasanton as it moves forward with implementing the Climate Action Plan and other climate protection strategies,” Roggenkamp added.