No More Excuses by Juliet Ellis

This Opinion piece appeared in The Independent, a weekly newspaper serving the Pleasanton area. Urban Habitat is a plaintiff in a lawsuit against the city for it's failure to build the amount of affordable housing as required by law. In response to a City Attorney's comments, Executive Director Juliet Ellis wrote the following Letter to the Editor which appeared in the Independent's July 3, 2008 Edition.

Given his statements last week (Affordable Housing Lawsuit Back in Play, June 26, 2008) Pleasanton City Attorney Michael Roush apparently needs to study up on his basic arithmetic.

As stated in the article, the City has reneged on its promise in the last Housing Element to rezone enough land for some 800 units of lower-income housing by June 2004. An additional 3,277 new units were allocated this month for the next planning period. For Mr. Roush’s benefit, that’s more than 4,000 units now needed, significantly more than the 2,755 units remaining under the 29,000-unit Housing Cap according to the City’s own staff report.

The City has already wasted more than $75,000 defending a lawsuit that would never have been necessary had the City done the right thing from the start.

Pleasanton has the opportunity to allow hundreds of affordable homes within walking distance of a major transit hub, reducing greenhouse gas emissions while promoting social equity. Mr. Roush should stop making excuses and instead advise the City to live up to its legal responsibilities.

Juliet Ellis Urban Habitat, Executive Director