Minutes 2019 0325 State of the City Address

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5 continues to add tens of thousands of jobs; however, not enough housing has been built to keep up. In the past 10 years, San Leandro has added over 6,000 jobs, while only building little more than 300 housing units. And many of these jobs are from the Tech Campus, Kaiser and other well-paying businesses, while the housing built has mostly been for affordable/lower income. So we have some more work to do building all types of housing to keep pace with our residents. Housing shortages are not unique to San Leandro, they are a statewide issue too, and we are seeing attempts to solve this problem through new state laws. To compensate for lack of housing, the state is considering new laws limiting local control. To address this situation, our Council has identified areas where more density makes sense, and they are usually next to transit hubs. If we don’t solve this issue locally, the state will continue to take away local control over our zoning. The City must seek out opportunities for well-designed housing at all levels, especially to help protect our at-risk residents, and those who live paycheck to paycheck. We want to make sure that San Leandrans of all incomes have a safe, well-maintained, and affordable place to live. We are taking a multi-pronged approach, including: ● Streamlining new higher density housing near BART, ● Protecting the most vulnerable through programs like Rent Review, Tenant Relocation, and Landlord-Tenant Counseling, ● And most recently, we are seeking increased protections for our Mobile Home residents, too. San Leandro has conducted broad outreach and engaged in an intensive community dialogue in the last 10 years. Together, we have updated our General Plan and created visions for our growing city, which includes additional housing in the downtown and Bayfair areas. We are now at a point of making some of that vision a reality, with over 1,000 residential units in the pipeline, with the large majority of these units proposed to be built near the San Leandro BART station and downtown area. For the past 2 years, the State of California is focusing on increasing their requirements for the cities to provide more housing. So according to the guidelines, we are meeting our mandated goals for affordable housing, but San Leandro has been identified as not producing sufficient market-rate housing. Fortunately, many of the new units we have in the works will help address this need.