By B. Sakura Cannestra. San Jose Spotlight.
Milpitas needs to build thousands of homes over the next eight years and is considering older retail and office space to reach its goal.
The Milpitas City Council weighed in Tuesday night on proposed zoning changes to expedite the redevelopment of five identified commercial sites, called Housing Opportunity Districts, that would provide more land for future housing.
The state requires the city to add 6,713 homes to its housing stock by 2031, half of which will be below market rate. The city has until July to finalize the zoning changes.
City Manager Ned Thomas said the identified sites are privately owned and it is up to the owners to redevelop the land. But he added that the city has heard that some homeowners want to rebuild soon, and this could provide more flexibility for future development.
“These are older shopping centers that, you know, at some point in the next 30 years might want to redevelop,” Thomas told San José Spotlight. “Through the General Plan process of gathering information from the public, one of the ideas that came out of that process was…to make it possible to have some housing units in a mixed-use format.”
Milpitas has approximately 81,000 residents and projects its population will reach 113,000 by 2040. There are 25,183 homes in the city, although a housing needs assessment from last year shows that less than half are considered affordable, which means it costs less than 30 percent of the household's monthly income. The median income for a household of four in Santa Clara County is $168,500.
Sandy Perry, president of the Santa Clara County Affordable Housing Network, said adjusting zoning regulations to facilitate future housing is not enough to address immediate affordable housing needs.
“Milpitas, like the rest of Silicon Valley, has a desperate shortage of affordable housing and the city council must show greater commitment to addressing that issue,” Perry told San José Spotlight. “These zoning changes might help a little, but the city has shown that it is far behind in producing affordable housing.”
Perry said Milpitas has historically failed to preserve existing affordable housing and provide tenants with protections from evictions, which can also exacerbate housing inequities.
The Association of Bay Area Governments decides how many homes each county and city is responsible for building, based on state housing requirements. Last cycle, the association tasked Milpitas with building 1,574 low- and very-low-income homes by 2022, but the city only completed 263. The city's new assignment is to build 2,655 low- and very-low-income homes. very low income.
Planning Director Jay Lee said most of the city's existing affordable housing stock is near the Milpitas BART station and Transit Center, so this serves as an opportunity for affordable housing to be developed in other areas. parts of the city.
Councilmember Hon Lien told San José Spotlight that the proposed zoning changes are an important step in producing more affordable housing to achieve these goals. Lien agreed that the city has not met its previous goals, but noted that affordable housing production has increased since 2019. Since then, the city has enacted rules requiring builders to provide affordable housing in any 10-mile development. or more residences.
“I encourage developers to come and build and of course pay attention and follow all policies regarding housing plans and elements,” Lien told San Jose Spotlight. “We want to make sure that we support developers and are pro-development so that they come, build and be part of the growth of our city.”
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