The Cupertino Courier

News

City gets low marks on meeting housing needs

By HUGH BIGGAR

Cupertino scored low in a new report documenting a housing "crisis" in the Bay Area.

Cupertino received an "F" in a report examining Bay Area housing needs, with the city meeting just under half its target of 2,640 new homes in the last seven years. In the report, the Bay Area Council, an advocacy group for large employers, evaluated housing permits issued in 101 cities in the nine-county Bay Area between 1999 and 2006. The report measured the permits granted against cities' state-mandated goals.

"We haven't been as successful as we could be," said Steve Piasecki, Cupertino's director of community development. Piasecki said Cupertino had granted permits for about 1,200 housing units.

The city is not alone, with 60 percent of other Bay Area jurisdictions also failing to grant their share of housing permits in that seven-year period. According to the report, this "under-permitting" has led to home prices tripling since 1990 and far-flung problems.

In the report, the Bay Area Council emphasized the regional impact, stating, "Escalating housing costs have caused many new and current Bay Area residents to leave the region or move to its edge despite holding jobs in the centers of the region, increasing commuting time and distances, exacerbating regional traffic congestion, increasing air pollution and further segregating households by income."

At the same time, the Association of Bay Area Governments forecasts the region to grow to almost 600,000 households and 1.6 million jobs in the next 25 years.

In the meantime, Cupertino continues to struggle to find a balance between more housing and maintaining its current quality of life. Concerns over quality of living prompted citizens to organize groups in the last two years opposing development projects. The groups' concerns include how more homes may affect school enrollment, traffic and city services.

"The city is doing what it can, but it is also a question of how much housing the market has produced," Piasecki said, pointing out some of the community resistance to new developments may have scared away builders. "We need to shift our perspective and not expect other cities to build housing for the jobs we create. It's all interwoven."