San Jose City Hall, 801 North First Street, Room 500, San Jose, CA 95110 (408)277-5800
For Immediate Release: January 10, 2001
Contact: David Vossbrink, Office of Mayor Gonzales (408) 277-3515
Mayor Gonzales Recommends New Housing Goal for San Jose
"We can do more," says Mayor
San Jose, CA - San Jose Mayor Ron Gonzales has
recommended a sweeping range of actions that would lead to the creation of
thousands of new housing units to help meet the critical needs for housing
availability and affordability in Silicon Valley.
Gonzales based his recommendations to the San Jose City Council on ideas and
proposals from the Mayor’s Housing Production Team he established last
September to identify specific ways the city could create more housing more
quickly.
"Although San Jose is already the housing leader in the entire Bay Area,
I believe we can do even more to make sure that families can find homes to live
in," he said.
"We have heard from the residents of our own community, from our
neighbors in nearby counties, and from our businesses - San Jose and every
city in our region must aggressively develop solutions to our housing
needs."
The Housing Production Team identified 72 measures for the City of San Jose
to consider in order to boost the pace of housing development. They included
streamlining the city’s planning, building, and funding procedures; increasing
San Jose Redevelopment Agency housing investment funding; and revising zoning
requirements to allow more residential development.
Gonzales recommends that the city begin immediately to evaluate the policy
issues, costs, and specific impacts on housing from these measures.
"Because the affordability of housing is directly affected by high
demand and the tight supply, I am urging the City Council and staff to move as
fast as we can to complete their analysis this year and act on solutions for
land use, funding, and administrative procedures."
Among the measures recommended by Gonzales is to initiate a master housing
Request for Qualifications in the downtown area. This RFQ process would identify
multiple downtown housing sites and solicit developer interest and proposals to
develop specific downtown housing opportunities.
"We had an excellent response to our recent RFQ for downtown retail and
mixed use development that confirms there is very strong potential for much more
residential development in downtown San Jose. This approach can take advantage
of the current market and active developer interest in our city."
Last year San Jose approved 4600 new homes, and construction started on more
than 1000 new units in the downtown area. In addition, the city’s first review
of new housing opportunities last year identified another potential 6000 units
that could be developed throughout San Jose through mixed use, rezoning
commercial sites, and increasing density in appropriate locations.
A second Housing Opportunity Study based on the recommendations of the
Housing Production Team could generate thousands more potential homes to
increase the housing supply in San Jose.
The San Jose General Plan, the basic land use policy for the city, currently
allows for the potential development of 40,000 new homes. As a result of the
current and recommended Housing Opportunity studies, Gonzales estimates that San
Jose could increase this potential residential development by more than 25
percent.
The San Jose City Council will consider the mayor’s recommendations at its
regular meeting 1:30 p.m. on Tuesday, January 16.
Copies of the mayor’s housing production recommendations can be found on
the City of San Jose website: www.ci.san-jose.ca.us
# # # # # # #
Mayor Home | Back to Top |
