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Pleasanton City Council f� FARELLA January 18, 2023 BRAUN+11tARTELr ii Page 2 This letter provides specific examples of sites on the current site inventory that do not satisfy these legal requirements. The City Council cannot credibly make the required findings for a number of the sites listed to provide lower income housing opportunities. Because the City has reduced its buffer so substantially for lower and moderate income units, if any of the sites below are found insufficient by HCD or a court,the City's Housing Element will be invalid. 1. The BART Parking Lot(APN 941-2771-15 and 941-2778-2) Two parcels owned by BART are currently being used as parking for BART patrons. The City lacks substantial evidence to conclude that it is"likely"that this use will cease during the next eight years so that housing could be built. The City should not be taking credit for 555 units of lower income housing in light of the evidence, and in light of the City's own zoning of these parcels that prohibits development of the parcels at this density. BART has stated that its development of parking lots is governed by its ten-year work plan, drafted in August 2020 and approved in 2021. 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, and lists them. Id. at pp. 22-31. The Dublin/Pleasanton station failed to rank highly in any of the three categories: market readiness, local support, or infrastructure readiness including alternative parking and intermodal transit facilities. The project was shown as being a"long term""Beyond 2030"site on figure 4 (p. 25). Notably, on its"5-Year and 10-Year Development Priorities"chart,BART explained that it would only develop 1-2 stations per year, and in listing the sequence of stations that it would work on, listed thirteen stations as prioritized over the ten station group that included Dublin/Pleasanton. Dublin/Pleasanton was included in a group with nine other stations described as ones where BART plans to craft development plans in 2025-2030(though does not state that it will build housing during this time period), and even then, only if it can obtain additional funding for staff to do so. A more recent update on BART's website confirms that"as of March 2021,"development of the Dublin/Pleasanton station is not currently"in planning,"but that eight other stations are. HAC Appendix Tab 4. Pleasanton itself acknowledged that the BART parking lot is unlikely to redevelop as housing during the next eight years as recently as July 2021. In appealing the RI-INA 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 RI-INA planning period." Pleasanton REINA Appeal. HAC Appendix Tab 2. The Housing Element