21 ATTACHMENT 7 - Laserfiche WebLink

Meghan Campbell (i) FARELLA November 30, 2022 BRAUN+MARTEL«e Page 2 with lower incomes, the City must show the realistic and demonstrated potential for redevelopment by making formal findings that the existing use does not impede residential development"based on substantial evidence that the use is likely to be discontinued"during the planning period. Government Code § 65583.2(g)(2)(final sentence). The City also fails to engage in the required analysis of existing leases, and market demand for the existing uses, that would indicate whether existing uses will continue. Government Code § 65583.2(g)(1). As explained below, applying these principles, the current draft does not meet the requirement that it identify sufficient sites that are realistic, suitable and available. The City relies heavily on the speculative and unlikely assumption that existing uses will cease during the next eight years in favor of affordable housing, even as to sites that have not made any progress towards residential development in the last eight years. 1. The BART Parking Lot(APN 941-2771-15 and 941-2778-2) Many cities in the Bay Area hope that BART parking lots will be redeveloped as residential housing, and have listed BART parking lots on their housing element inventories. Indeed, BART has expressed an intention to eventually redevelop land at a number of its stations. The problem for Pleasanton's draft Housing Element is this: Nothing about what BART has said makes it"likely"that BART will cease the existing use of the Dublin/Pleasanton BART station parking lots on Owens Drive within the next eight years, and absent substantial evidence that BART is likely to discontinue use during the next eight years,the existing use is presumed to be an obstacle to the building of affordable housing. The two BART parking lot parcels are thus not appropriately counted towards the obligation to provide for the need for lower income housing. Pleasanton itself acknowledged the unlikelihood of the redevelopment of the BART parking lot as recently as July 2021. In appealing the RHNA allocation to the Association of Bay Area Governments, Pleasanton argued: "One of the more significant theoretical development opportunities is housing on land owned by BART. BART, in its August 2020 Transit-Oriented Development Program Work Plan, identified the Pleasanton area BART stations as a low priority for investment in housing-focused projects (both BART stations are identified as priorities for commercial, not residential, development [], meaning that a significant policy shift would have to occur at BART in order to bring these sites on-line during the RHNA planning period." Pleasanton RHNA Appeal. HAC Appendix Tab 2. The 2021 RHNA appeal was right about the facts. BART has stated that its development of parking lots is governed by its August 2020 ten-year work plan. HAC Appendix Tab 3. The 38 page plan was"initiated as a way to differentiate zoning from development and give jurisdictions clarity around when development of BART property is anticipated to occur as they embark on rezoning efforts . . . ." BART Transit Oriented Development work plan, at p. 9. The plan discusses how it prioritized which stations would be developed during the next ten years,