Because this rejects the artificial potential housing the city has been using to make its numbers by counting the mall and the BART parking lots as potential but improbable houses, we will probably need to commit to houses on the east side.

I just hope that those houses are forever zoned low to medium density so that we 1) STOP allowing commercial office space development, which triggers the law requiring houses, and 2) STOP allowing apartments and postage stamp sized houses.

Dublin wasted a tremendous opportunity with their hills, which could have been build out like Ruby Hills and instead is almost San Francisco in its tightness of space. Let’s please please please not make that same error here.

Oh, and you are aware that Wiener is trying to force Brisbane to build with that law. Sadly, he probably couldn’t care less that that law will lead to much worse, Los Angeles like sprawl conditions for the rest of the Bay Area and increased Spare the Air alerts for everyone.

Unfortunately, by having a Republican as our state representive, we have essentially no regional voice in one chamber of government.

This quote makes me sad: "Housing production in general is a touchy subject in our community, invites extreme reactions from both sides," Fialho added. Housing production is one of the most important issues facing this region. Prices are out of control and people are being forced further and further from their jobs to be able to afford a place to live. Pleasanton is victimized twice by the lack of affordable housing in our area: increased traffic/pollution from the congestion on 580 and 680 caused by people driving through our community to get to work and by the fact that our kids and teachers and police officers can't afford to live here. People who do not want any more housing in pleasanton should really think about what housing really is: a home for somebody who wants to become a member of this community. Growth is going to happen. You can't shut the gates behind you. High density housing next to transit is the answer. It provides choice. We have enough ruby hills (which is the definition of sprawl by the way). No one is forcing anyone to live in apartments. There is a demand for this type of housing. I would be surprised if the anti-housing people never lived in an apartment at least at some point in their lives. We need more housing and we need a variety of types and price points. These are facts.

Just read this in an article about transportation. This supports the claim that there is a demand for different type of housing than what is currently available in pleasanton:

Declines in driver licensing and car ownership rates are often cited as an indicator of shifting lifestyle preferences. Since 1983, there has been a steady drop in the share of Americans 16 through 44 years of age with a driver’s license
(Sivak & Schoettle, 2016 ). Millennials are less drawn to the auto-oriented lifestyles of their parents ( Taylor,Blumenberg, Brown, Ralph, & Voulgaris, 2015 ). Unlike Baby Boomers, for whom the ownership of two major and costly assets—houses and automobiles—tended to be lifelong goals, Millennials are more inclined to direct their incomes to electronic gadgets, travel, eating out, going to
concerts, and other life experiences (Litman, 2015 ). According to one survey, 30% of U.S. Millennials are willing to give up owning a car even if it means paying
more to travel (Dutzik, Inglis, & Baxandall, 2014 ). Millennials are also reshaping the geomorphology of cities. Many are drawn to accessible, walkable, mixed-use
neighborhoods in traditional urban cores (Juday, 2015 ). Although even more Millennials are taking up residence in the suburbs (Taylor et al., 2015 ), this is mainly because most cannot afford to live in the gentrified urban core
(Juday, 2015 ). If they could, they would. When living downtown or nearby, Millennials and their neighbors tend to own fewer cars; are less likely to drive or have a license; and are much more likely to walk, take transit, or hail an
app-based ride than are residents of other parts of a city
(Rayle et al., 2016 ; Taylor et al., 2015 ). Where Millennials go, so do employers.

Kim, I'll tell you what makes me sad, people who want to close the gate behind them and keep Pleasanton an exclusive, over the top priced rich people's club. Their attitude is "if you can't afford a $2 million dollar home in Pleasanton, just leave and go live somewhere else". Leave us rich people in peace! That is really sad. I have never seen a place so uncaring, unsupportive and unbelievably selfish as this. Many people work very hard and would like to live in Pleasanton where they work, but can't because of the extremely high prices here. They are forever doomed to commute their lives away and the "haves" couldn't care less about the have nots. Sad.

@Closed Community - your oversimplification of this issue is astounding. Gee, I’d love to live in Blackhawk and it’s just not “fair” that those homes are so expensive and I can’t get what I want - boo hoo for me. Sorry to break it to you, but life is not always equitable or equal. Nothing in life is ever 100% equal. The notion of forced equalization is called socialism how well did that work?

My family has worked very hard to live in Pleasanton. We don’t live in a $2 million dollar house or even a $1 million dollar house. Our house is neither ostentatious or huge, so generalizing those of use who work hard and live in this community as “rich and uncaring” is sad. We love Pleasanton, and yes, it may take my husband and I up to 2 hours each way to commute to work, we wouldn’t live anywhere else in the Bay Area and we work very, very hard to live here. We choose to live In Pleasanton because it’s not overcrowded (yet) like many of the other communities in the Bay Area are being forced to become. Sad, yes sad, if/when Pleasanton is also forced to succumb to the pressures of this “need more housing” (high density, 0 parking, 0 lot projects) mentality. The unfounded comments about those of us who live in this town, and who work very hard to live in this town, don’t apply, that’s what’s so sad.

@Homeowner and others,

Not everyone in Pleasanton is against high density housing, and high density doesn't automatically mean lower quality of life. Well planned development can be good for a community. Bringing BART to Pleasanton and adding the extra station were both solid improvements in my opinion.

I also like the idea of adding apartments and condos near public transportation, like the newer apartments near BART. I can't help but see the irony in the NIMBY attitude of people who move into new housing developments and then immediately oppose all future development. I'm personally glad to see the opposition really isn't working anymore. People have to face reality. If you want low density living, you need to leave the Bay Area.

@Grumpy,

Are you sure you really think Dublin should have tried to turn all those hills into one enormous high end gated community like Ruby Hills?

Do you really mean to say to all the people who bought those homes and live in those apartments that their houses represent a "wasted opportunity?". They probably like living there. I have friends living in that area and really like it.

Sorry, don’t care. Busted my @$$ to buy a home here (good schools, family friendly, parks, etc) and am really not interested in being neighbors with someone that thinks they should be able to live here due to geography.

Teachers, police, fire can’t afford to live here?! Give me a break, they can and choose not to due to the same reasons I choose to live here and commute 60mi daily. Quality of life for dollar.

I don’t want a high density community- I lived that life before and choose to not do so anymore.

I shouldn’t have to feel guilty for that either, stop bullying those of us that have a differing opinion on housing just because it’s not yours.

Legislation that adds prevailing wage requirements along with increased affordability mandates only pushes land developers to outer lying areas such as Tracy and the central valley. For those applauding, it will mean that even greater infill densities will be constructed here per the City’s housing element aka affordable mega apartment complexes. It also means we are impacting our State’s agricultural area, adds more traffic and need for improvements to I580. If you care about big picture, it creates social, economic, and environmental inequities by distancing people from higher performing schools, better paying jobs, reduces their family time, and causes MORE environmental impacts. I dont support income restricted affordable housing, but I think we need to be better at integrating different medium and high density neighborhoods.

I blame people like Matt Sullivan and past council members for kicking the can down the street. They claim to be anti-housing for quality of life here. Unfortunately, we could have addressed it thougthfully to better integrate densities over time. Now we will have no choice but to construct much higher densities at fewer locations and have designated affordable rents or sales prices. And I cant wait for the East Side development which will no doubt ultimately be the last opportunity to maximize housing to avoid State penalties.

By the way, our daughter/family at age 35 bought a small new home in Livermore after working hard and saving. The City required the same house across the street to be designated at a low income price. So it is literally 1/3 of the market price she paid. Instead of celebrating their hard work and modest success, they are disenchanted and upset. Something is wrong with this approach and we believe affordable units should be only apartments with a property manager to handle exteriors, interiors, and landscape.

@Pleasanton Parent,

Dublin is family friendly and has good schools too (in some ways better than Pleasanton). People also worked hard to afford Dublin. No one is demanding that your house be torn down.

I'm glad I live in the Bay Area, where business and jobs are thriving. More housing is coming to Pleasanton, and well planned higher density housing can improve our quality of life.

Our small house was built in the 40s, far from “new,” in an area with large apartment complexes, so we already have density in our neighborhood. BobB, your NIMBY argument doesn’t apply. Telling those of us who live in Pleasanton, to get out, to make room for “well planned developments” is sounding like something straight out of the totalitarian notebook. Nope, thank you for the offer, but we’re staying.

@Homeowner,

I'm not asking anyone to get out and have no plans to leave anytime soon myself.

@BobB,

No silly, I don't really think Dublin should have tried to turn all those hills into one enormous Ruby Hill. That's why I didn't say it.

What I did say is that they wasted their opportunity, and that the hills could have been built out like Ruby Hill--to which now I'll add Blackhawk. These are examples of low density residential. Dublin chose to do high density. The density of houses does impact the quality of life, and the resale value of the locations within the community.

As for apartments, why are you saying *they* represent a wasted opportunity? Apartments in Dublin seem, at least from a distance, to be well done and well integrated. I'm not sure what you have against them, or why you project that onto me, but those answers must lie within you. Thus, you may find that the discussion you need to have is with yourself, not here with others.

From an environmental as well as planning perspective, it is wrong to treat distant suburbs/exurbs as urban infill zones. These housing laws are designed to solve SF problems, which we don't have and the solutions of which will cause serious problems here.

I am totally fine with a broad mix of housing types: high density in Hacienda near BART for transit, with densities decreasing at distance to ensure consistency and preservation of rural and agricultural environments. I don't like out-of-place density, though I dislike the Bernal/Stanley development much less than I thought I would. What I don't like is the seeming thoughtlessness in this whole enterprise, where we have lots of official plans but no real cohesiveness of thought across them.

So, to repeat, I am against the general urbanization of exurbs. That's bad for everyone. But I am for having a wide variety of housing choices, from basic apartments to luxury apartments, and from first-time houses to luxury houses.

Also, could someone please explain the fixation towards gated communities here? It's so rife that one cannot mention Ruby Hill as a density example with people getting wrapped around the axle on exclusivity and class issues. Perhaps I'll have to remember to mention Castlewood instead? No gates...but do people hate on it just as much? Maybe I should mention farmland? I'm at a loss here.

I understand why people might dislike gates. I don't want to live behind one. I might not care if a house I wanted already were behind one. But I'd never think to ask to have one built. But the Wente guys were smart when they took low-quality jug wine acreage and replaced it with a fortune-generating real estate development. I'm jealous for Wente. But good for them. And good for those who want to buy a house behind it. So long as those who don't like gates can buy good houses with public streets, then all is well.

BobB,
Ask the people in Dublin if they're happy with their high density housing and commute through the town to get to schools for their kids.

Dublin has no downtown, no community, it's not a bad place to live, but not what I want in a community

@Pleasanton Parent,

Like I said, I have a number of friends who live in Dublin and like it a lot. Planning could have been better, but it isn't a bad place to live at all.

@Grumpy,

I don't have a problem with apartments near BART in Dublin or Pleasanton.

@BobB, no but you think everyone else does, when they don’t either. That says something interesting about you, don’t you think?

What I want is good planning. Not magical thinking, like Owens Dr. Not bad infill projects. Not postage stamped lots so that landowners can double the density. But not all McMansions, not all private roads. I always refer back to Irvine, because like them or not that’s their one skill—varying the community density and style and doing terrific high density apartments. Now, they are terrible at transit oriented development, but OC doesn’t do transit well. We have BART. So let’s do that well.

" That says something interesting about you, don’t you think?"

Maybe you should stick to the subject rather than getting personal.

" no but you think everyone else does, when they don’t either."

I don't. Plenty of people on these threads object to all growth no matter what.

"Not postage stamped lots so that landowners can double the density."

I don't have any problem at all with "postage stamped lots". Plenty of people prefer them. Much less gardening and lawn care to deal with.

And I just want to repeat, that Pleasanton Weekly comments are loaded with NIMBYs who object to building anything, anywhere. I'm happy to answer them.

@Grumpy,

Regarding what you said about Ruby Hill, you made have been thinking something different in your head, but you said "could have been build out like Ruby Hills" and I responded to that.

I'm genuinely sorry you took it personally. It's not strictly personal, as in it is not an ad hominem argument. When someone makes a quick and false assumption, it injects the assumer into the conversation. And I do find it fascinating when people assume. I buy what you say, that so many people are NIMBYs that you'd assume I was being that way too. But my opinions are generally more nuanced than that.

"Could have been build out like Ruby Hill", in plain English, uses the work "like" to mean "sharing one or more attributes of". You assumed the attribute I was discussing was uniformity and exclusivity. I wasn't. I was merely discussing density, since Ruby Hill is one of the few large, low density zoned residential areas in Pleasanton if not the largest. So I understand how you got to the assumption, but like I said, it was an assumption.

And you're making the same black-and-white assumption on postage stamp sized lots. The argument "some people like them" is no counter to "all of them should not be". Yet you use it as one. So I'm stuck again trying to figure out why you're seeing this issue in black-and-white. Dublin has exclusively postage stamp sized lots. Plenty can be said about how wrong it is to be exclusively or even predominantly postage stamp sized, none the least of which is that this didn't reduce prices, but rather increased density at the same high price, to allow developers to squeeze more money out. Dublin lost sight of their responsibility, as an exurb, to not increase density radically and cause localized pollution, traffic, and increased average commute times. The state doesn't help, because policies designed for SF get applied here by overzealous officials. Now, none of this argues for eliminating some zero-lot-line developments, and, as I mentioned before, some should exist because some people like them. But right now Dublin gives no one a choice, and just because people buy it doesn't mean that that was right or even what they wanted.

Are you able to see this part of the argument?

@Grumpy,

Sure, I see what you were saying.