California requires all cities and counties to plan on meeting the housing needs of everyone in the community. This is done through the Housing Element, a component of a city’s General Plan. Every eight years, local governments must update their housing element and have it certified by the State of California.
Pleasanton is required to update its Housing Element by January 2023. But before that occurs, the regional planning agency, Association of Bay Area Governments (ABAG), produces a Regional Housing Needs Allocation (RHNA) with the total number of new residences required in the Bay Area, and how affordable they should be. Although not yet finalized, the City of Pleasanton’s draft RHNA is just under 6,000 units. This is the largest housing allocation in Pleasanton’s history!
The City has planned robust community-wide meetings to discuss how we will meet this target, and we encourage your participation. In doing so, you will be provided updates on the process and your voice will be heard in discussions relating to where new housing will be planned for the future development, and its impacts on traffic, school capacity, and more.
The initial discussion takes place via Zoom today, Wednesday, May 12, at 7 pm, at the City Planning Commission meeting Link to Join Zoom Meeting (see Item #5 under "Public Hearings and Other Matters" on the Planning Commission Agenda.) That meeting will be followed by meetings of the Pleasanton Housing Commission on Thursday, May 13, 2021, and the Pleasanton City Council on Tuesday, May 18, 2021. All Zoom links for these meetings can be found on the Meeting Information page.
PleasantonVoters.com recommends you follow the process and get regular updates directly from the City. A schedule of meetings on the housing updates, and the link to get email notifications on projects is available at PleasantonHousingElement.com.
