SR 06:116 - Laserfiche WebLink

Chairperson Harris stated that the General Plan is not scheduled to be adopted until May 2007. After the General Plan is adopted the City will then start the rezonings. Therefore, it is going to be a good year and a half before the City begins implementing what they had originally promised to do as of June 2004. Steven Bocian replied that the General Plan process is taking a lot longer than originally anticipated. Staff went to the City Council a little over a year ago and inquired if they wanted to look at rezoning properties outside of the General Plan process. The Council made a decision that they wanted to look at all the land use issues as part of the General Plan Update. Commissioner Stark asked staff to keep the Commission informed if any correspondence from HCD is received regarding this issue. Maurine Behrend, 961 Maracaibo Place, San Ramon, addressed the Commission about regional housing needs. Last May, the Tri-Valley Interfaith Poverty Forum partnered with the East Bay Community Foundation, the League of Women Voters, and other organizations to sponsor a housing conference that presented a report on progress among Tri-Valley cities in meeting the goals, policies, and programs in their respective housing elements. The event was held in Pleasanton and involved collaboration by the Tri-Valley Business Council, the East Bay Community Foundation, and housing staff from each of the five Tri- Valley cities. Ms. Behrend provided excerpts from the housing report to the Commission showing statistics for Pleasanton and Livermore. She noted that she was surprised to see that Pleasanton had only met 3% of their very low income housing need. In the past Pleasanton has done some great projects. Ms. Behrend spent a few minutes sharing with the Commission the typical profile for local workers who typically fall into the very low income range. The big issue is that the lack of affordable housing is going to cause problems for these workers even though the city has a business park and a huge mall. The Poverty Forum is going to be producing a PowerPoint presentation that they will take around to different organizations. Ms. Behrend stated that she has been interviewing some long distance commuters in order to disseminate information that these workers are people that feed us in restaurants, sell us shoes, comfort our children, ring up our purchases in the grocery store or the mall, manage clothing stores, assist nurses and greet us when we get our cars fixed. She stated that they are the grass roots folks in our cities. Ms. Behrend stated that her organization is willing to do as much as it can to build grass roots support in Pleasanton for affordable housing and to help the City meet its needs. The Commission thanked Ms. Behrend for her presentation. Page - 5 -