Appeals Court Rules Affordable Housing Suit May Proceed Against Pleasanton
Dateline:
06/23/2008The decision by the three judge appeals panel will let plaintiffs Urban Habitat and low-income teacher and mother Sandra De Gregorio pursue their claims that the City has failed to meet its affordable housing obligations. In a 20-page opinion issued late Friday, the Court reinstated the October 2006 challenge to a range of exclusionary housing measures such as Pleasanton’s Housing Cap and Growth Management Ordinance. The Court also allowed the plaintiffs to go forward with a claim to require the City to zone land for affordable housing and two other claims alleging that the City’s land-use policies unlawfully discriminate against families with children.
“These zoning and housing claims are critical to the families excluded from Pleasanton by these policies, and to the economic and environmental sustainability of our entire region,” said Richard Marcantonio, a managing attorney with Public Advocates who represented the Plaintiffs in court last month. “The Court’s rejection of the City’s technical defenses vindicates the importance of these rights and gives us our day in court.”
Juliet Ellis, Urban Habitat’s executive director, noted that 40,000 workers commute to Pleasanton because of the lack of housing near their jobs. “Pleasanton has the opportunity to allow hundreds of affordable homes within walking distance of a major transit hub,” said Ellis, adding that “We are calling on the City to show leadership in reducing greenhouse gas emissions while promoting social equity.”
The issue of rezoning arose out of a promise the City made in the Housing Element of its General Plan to rezone enough land for some 800 units of lower-income housing by June 2004. Four years later, it has not yet selected the sites for rezoning, or begun the process of rezoning them, effectively making it impossible for non-profit housing developers and others to build that housing. Since 1999, only 20 homes for very-low income families with children—such as a family of four earning $40,000—have been built in Pleasanton.
While the case was pending in the Court of Appeal, Bay Area cities received their new allocation of affordable housing for the period from 2007-2014. Pleasanton’s share totals 3,277 units of housing, and includes 1,804 lower income units for which the City is required to rezone land at minimum densities of 30 units per acre.
The suit claims that Pleasanton’s Housing Cap violates state law because the City cannot accommodate the City’s fair share of the regional need for new housing without exceeding the Cap’s 29,000-unit limit. A City staff report last summer disclosed that, as of January 1, 2007, only 2,755 more units remained under the 29,000-unit Cap. That falls significantly short of the more than 4,000 units now needed -- the 800 lower-income units left over from the old planning period plus the 3,277 new units that were allocated this month. (The suit would not affect the City’s urban growth boundary, which protects open space from development.)
A copy of the Court’s ruling and other court documents can be found at www.publicadvocates.org.
Public Advocates Inc. is a nonprofit law firm and advocacy organization that challenges the systemic causes of poverty and racial discrimination by strengthening community voices in public policy and achieving tangible legal victories advancing education, housing and transit equity. Public Advocates spurs change through collaboration with grassroots groups representing low-income communities, people of color and immigrants, combined with strategic policy reform, media advocacy and litigation, “making rights real” across California since 1971.
Urban Habitat is a Bay Area regional environmental justice organization. It builds bridges among environmentalists, social justice advocates, government leaders, and the business community and promotes affordable housing opportunities for lower-income Bay Area residents.
The California Affordable Housing Law Project, a statewide support center specializing in affordable housing planning, joins Public Advocates as co-counsel in the case.
Munger, Tolles & Olson LLP also joins as co-counsel for Plaintiffs in the case.
Source:
Press Release (PDF) - Login to post comments
Related stories:
