***BREAKING NEWS!! The City of Morgan Hill has also had their Housing Element certified by the state, and brings Santa Clara County’s total number of jurisdictions with certified Housing Elements to seven!
San Jose
SV@Home, in partnership with other local and regional housing and community advocacy organizations, has been working alongside city staff and key stakeholders to respond to HCD’s comments (8/28/23) on the adopted Draft Housing Element. The City’s engagement has been proactive, collaborative, and responsive. We appreciate the time the staff has committed to meeting with key organizations and community members in the past months. SV@Home is pleased to submit a letter of support for San Jose’s revised Housing Element to HCD.
While we support state certification of San Jose’s Housing Element, we recognize that the work we have done together up until now is only the beginning, as the City now moves to implement the ambitious work plan contained in the Element. We look forward to strengthening the valuable collaborative relationships with community and regional partners as we move collectively from planning to implementation.
Palo Alto
On November 13th, the City Council approved upzoning for a few parcels of land in a new “Housing Focus Area” on El Camino Real as well as increasing the height limit on certain parcels in the industrial and commercial corridor around San Antonio Road and Fabian Way that the City has planned for low-income housing. The city continues to ignore the Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing implications of concentrating sites for low-income households in this small area, adjacent to Highway 101 and on the border with Mountain View.
While the El Camino “Housing Focus Area” is a more appropriate location for people to live, with access to amenities and transit, the City’s new policies include numerous design restrictions that limit development. The most significant of these is a requirement that the tallest portions of the building be “stepped back” away from El Camino. Along the street, the height limit would be up to 55 feet tall. Only the stepped-back portion could reach the 85-foot limit.
The draft remains a work in progress, but as the City appears willing to take only small, incremental actions in the face of enormous housing needs, the next revision of the Draft Housing Element will likely also fall short. Without substantial improvements, Palo Alto is consigned to a lengthy process of back and forth with the state, while consequences including the looming risk of losing access to state funding, grow closer, along with fines and penalties.
What’s happening in your city?
Find out where your city is in the approval process and how to contact your city’s HCD reviewer by following your city’s progress in SV@Home’s Housing Element Toolkit!
