With voters in San Jose City Council District 3 picking their next council member in a special election runoff next Tuesday, June 24th, we have invited both candidates to share their thoughts on housing affordability. Both Gabby Chavez-Lopez and Anthony Tordillos have ties to SV@Home: Chavez-Lopez was our Director of Communications & Membership and Anthony Tordillos was in the 2023 cohort of our Civic Leadership Program. We are proud of both of them for stepping up to offer their service to the community. Regardless of the outcome on Tuesday, we look forward to continuing to work with both of them to advance housing justice in San Jose.
Gabby Chavez-Lopez
As I have knocked on doors and attended events at neighbor’s homes in recent months, District 3 residents have shared their personal stories about San Jose’s housing crisis and how it has
impacted them.
As a member of the City Council, I commit to tackling the affordability challenge head on. I have the knowledge and experience to do this— I’ve worked for years in the community on the ground with residents, raised money to help people access housing, worked for a nonprofit whose mission was to increase housing affordability, and sat on the County Planning Commission where I approved new development and proactive housing policies.
For the future, here’s my plan.
- More Homes– It’s not enough to plan for housing, we need to build it. Currently there are thousands of units in the pipeline that have received their entitlements or permits. While there are external constraints that impact progress, we can take local action to spur projects forward. I will:
- Work hand in hand with the development community to understand their concerns and provide support to resolve roadblocks that increase costs and timelines. This includes decreasing permit processing times, which for large developments can take years.
- Work to jumpstart development in Urban Village areas (including East Santa Clara, Roosevelt Park, Five Wounds, and Little Portugal), Downtown, and in the Google planning area, where up to 15,000 homes were originally anticipated.
- Support the City’s efforts to reduce fees and other costs for market rate development to move stalled projects forward.
- Initiate similar actions for affordable housing to increase production and bring down the cost of development.
- Proactive Planning– Many plans are already in place that address housing, including the City’s General Plan and Housing Element. The City is embarking on a General Plan update this year, and I will work hard to ensure that workable and actionable policies are included that address housing affordability. Additionally, I will actively monitor progress in meeting Housing Element goals and deadlines.
- More Funding—I will support new sources of affordable housing funds and money for related infrastructure, including a planned $10 billion Statewide housing bond and a potential regional or County measure.
- Strengthen Partnerships—I will use my strong relationships to partner with San Jose State in the development of its Urban Village, work with the VTA and Water District to access their land for affordable development, and reach out to the business sector and engage employers to make them a part of the housing solution. Importantly, I would partner with the County of Santa Clara to respond to affordable housing and homelessness, and work regionally with other cities to coordinate response and find common ground solutions.
What I believe in is a comprehensive approach to housing affordability, one that recognizes the need for more housing supply, the specific need for affordable housing for seniors, working families, and special populations, the need to preserve the housing we have, and the need to keep people in their homes and prevent displacement.
Anthony Tordillos
For years, the Bay Area has added about 5 jobs for every 1 new home, resulting in a shortfall of over 700,000 homes. The effects of this imbalance are clear, with over 40% of renters in San José experiencing rent burden and 1 in 5 paying over half of their income each month towards housing. To keep up with demand, San José needs to build about 8,000 new homes each year, but despite the clear evidence of a housing shortage, residential construction in San José has slowed, and the gap between supply and demand is growing.
The status quo is not working, and we need leaders with new ideas and the expertise to see them through to build our way out of this crisis.
My housing plan focuses on making it faster and cheaper to build the new housing our community desperately needs. Construction costs in California are high for a number of reasons, many beyond the purview of city government, but there are many factors City Council can directly control to speed up construction, bring down costs, and boost production, including:
- Speeding up permitting with ministerial entitlements
- Removing litigation risk with CEQA exemptions for environmentally-friendly infill housing
- Reforming onerous design guidelines with an eye towards decreasing construction costs
- Legalizing missing middle housing and small-scale apartment buildings
- Supporting project feasibility, with fee deferrals and policies to enable cross-subsidization of commercial and residential development
The city should also be proactive in leveraging new tools from the state to boost production, such as aligning local land use policies with planned building code changes to unlock small-lot multifamily development, and leveraging recent laws like SB 10 to streamline upzoning. At the county level, I will work with VTA to support the agency’s efforts to build walkable, mixed-income, transit-oriented communities on VTA land.
Finally, while building more market-rate and moderate-income housing is a critical piece of the puzzle, we must also continue to prioritize direct investment in affordable and supportive housing for our most vulnerable residents. Measure A has proven that these investments work at scale, with over 5,000 affordable units complete or in the pipeline.
On City Council, I’ll work with leaders across all levels of government to support a new housing bond to keep this pipeline moving forward. I’ll also work with my fellow councilmembers to identify new sources of operational funding for our shelter system, so we can free up Measure E funds for investment in affordable housing.
Finally, as we work to build our way out of this crisis over the long term, we must ensure that we are protecting existing tenants, working to prevent displacement, and investing in the preservation of our existing affordable housing stock.
The Bay Area’s housing affordability crisis is the culmination of decades of policy missteps. But with new leaders and new policies, we can turn the corner on this shortage and build a San José where everyone in our community can thrive. Let’s get to work!