Santa Clara’s 15-year legal battle with the City of San Jose, that has held up development of up to 24,000 housing units in North San Jose, could end because of the newly elected councilmembers from both cities.
Santa Clara’s 15-year legal battle with the City of San Jose that has held up development of up to 24,000 housing units is North San Jose could end because of the newly elected councilmembers from both cities. Councilmember David Cohen from San Jose, Councilmembers Sudhanshu Sud Jain and Councilmember Anthony Becker from Santa Clara along with Mayor Sam Liccardo have agreed to “collaboration and share solutions” to ending the 15-year battle that has cost the region thousands of units of housing.
North San Jose is the city’s largest employment district, is home to dozens of startups and large companies. In 2005, San Jose adopted the North San Jose Development Policy that outlined a plan to add more than 25 million square feet of new office and industrial development, 32,000 housing units, almost 3 million square feet of retail and commercial space and 1,000 hotel rooms. Shortly after, Milpitas, Santa Clara and Santa Clara County sued San Jose citing a lack of sufficient traffic congestion mitigation on roadways neighboring the North SJ neighbors. In 2006 a settlement forced San Jose to divide the plan into four phases with the first phase being restricted to 8,000 housing units only for every 7 million square feet of new commercial space built. In addition, San Jose was forced to make further transportation improvements.
A collaborative style agreement between San Jose and Santa Clara will be a big win for housing advocates, working families, businesses, and companies. Development of housing will help reduce the cost and provide much needed inventory of housing to residents and employees in Silicon Valley.