San Ramon Must Plan For 5.1K More Housing Units After Appeal Rejected

SAN RAMON, CA — San Ramon must plan for another 5,100 housing units after a Bay Area governing association rejected its appeal of a state housing mandate last week.

The state determined that the Bay Area needed to plan for another 441,000 new housing units, including affordable housing, to address the housing crisis. The state does not require local governments to ensure that the units get built.

San Ramon was one of 27 local governments to appeal their Regional Housing Needs Allocation to the Association of Bay Area Governments. The association is a planning agency that the state tasked with determining how many units should be built in various local towns and cities.

San Ramon sought to reduce its housing allocation by 28 percent to 3,660 units.

The city's appeal was recommended for rejection during a September hearing where the city was allowed to make its case for an appeal.

On Nov. 12 the administrative committee of the Association of Bay Area Governments rejected San Ramon's appeal, along with those of Danville, Dublin and Pleasanton. All appeals were rejected except for that of unincorporated Contra Costa County, which was granted a partial appeal and saw its housing allocation reduced by 35 units.

San Ramon Mayor Dave Hudson, who sits on the committee, recused himself from the vote on San Ramon's appeal, but rejected the others.

Critics argued that economic hubs should receive a larger share of new housing units and that suburban areas would be forced to grapple with traffic or water distribution issues if they took in more residents who worked elsewhere.

Aaron Eckhouse, regional policy director of California YIMBY (Yes In My Backyard), said in comments during the September meeting that San Ramon is a major job center that has a housing-to-job ratio comparable to that of San Francisco, Sunnyvale, Cupertino and Campbell.

Of the 441,000 housing units that the Bay Area must plan for, 26 percent must be reserved for people who are considered very low income, 15 percent for people who have low incomes, 17 percent for people with moderate incomes, and 43 percent for people who have incomes above moderate.

The Association of Bay Area Governments was expected to adopt a final plan at its Dec. 16 meeting.