Opinion: San Jose must ditch its high-density rules to get more housing built

San Jose is launching its once-every-four-years review of its General Plan Those who hope the review will increase housing production should read the official scope of work diligently The memo seems to commit the city to continuing the policies that are causing our housing predicament Our failure to build housing is due to policies introduced under Mayor Chuck Reed from through the early s Before Reed was mayor San Jose produced the same amount of housing as Seattle to units a year The General Plan provided for considerable new housing quota units by That s about units a year Related Articles Oak Knoll neighborhood in Oakland hills gains new life and fresh start South Bay apartment hub bought in deal that tops million Affordable housing upgrade in San Jose advances with construction loan How Democrats overcame special interests that long blocked CEQA adjustment Oakland apartment complexes flop into default in ailing territory There was a terrible catch however and the scope of work for the General Plan update gives no indication that San Jose s planning division wants to undo the catch The Envision plan specified that the housing would be at density of at least units per acre Such dense housing requires indoor parking and has to be taller which creates a whole new series of extra costs Once you start building past three or four stories you can no longer build mostly with wood a significantly cheaper option Rather supporting much taller buildings requires a lot more cement and a steel-based structure all of which substantially raises per-unit housing costs over lower density housing In other words the density requirements the city wants in order to alleviate the high cost of housing are a self-defeating strategy Only wealthier people can afford its vision at region rates Then there s the matter that people with incomes required to afford living in these kinds of buildings don t even want to live in the San Jose neighborhoods where the city is trying to increase construction As a development developers can t or won t build most of of the housing in the General Plan Consequently and unsurprisingly San Jose has produced only one-third to one-fifth as much housing as Seattle every year Adding more of this kind of housing ceiling may fool state regulators into approving future San Jose submissions But it will do virtually nothing to produce more housing The updated memo does not acknowledge any failures of the Envision plan It says the General Plan is a comprehensive and forward-thinking strategy document that lays the framework for becoming a fiscally-sound and environmentally sustainable city of great places while also accommodating a projected population enhancement of over new residents Where it discusses adding housing threshold it does so in the context of preparing for future demands from the state It says nothing about reorienting planning toward housing that can truly be built There exist planning firms that seem to have real limit to reorient a city s housing planning Sacramento has made progress Sacramento seems to have recognized its existing system wasn t working and worked with a serious consultant to change it Shouldn t we be demanding more than what s in the General Plan review scope of work San Jose should be demanding at least what Seattle and Sacramento are delivering San Jose is a city of square miles It definitely has enough land to permit the units a year of housing that the state requires us to build Last year we permitted units But to build San Jose demands to legalize lower-cost mid-density housing roughly to units per acre where high density housing is impossible It necessities to look at the of the city that is not zoned for any kind of housing and find a insufficient square miles where more housing mostly cheaper-to-build mid-density housing can be built These are small changes but they can have big effects Why aren t changes like these addressed in the General Plan review scope of work Robert Chapman Wood is professor emeritus of strategic management at San Jose State University