Author: Bob Staedler (Bob Staedler)

A lot of attention has been given to the allocation of Measure E funds for either long-term or short-term housing projects. My vote would be to do both, but an area of the city budget that I don’t believe gets enough attention is the parks deferred maintenance backlog. Per page 353 of the city’s 2024-2028...

My plan for this month’s column was to talk about the importance of workforce housing in the higher education sector. I was going to discuss the lack of options available and the need for cooperation across all of Silicon Valley’s exceptional institutions. San Jose State has been making big strides in this endeavor and progress...

California enacted SB 1214 into law on Jan. 1, 2023. It uses copyright law to allow city planning departments to avoid sharing development plans with the public and news agencies. It was previously the practice of planning departments to post development plans online and send images to media outlets, who could then write stories about...

San Jose has missed the state’s Jan. 31 deadline for an approved 2023-2031 Housing Element. The Housing Element is a plan to map out future housing in San Jose and help the city meet its goal of planning for 62,200 homes by 2031. According to the city, the Housing element addresses a range of housing...

The San Jose City Council agenda last week had an innocuous item called the Municipal Regional Stormwater Permit Reissuance. It was previously discussed during the Dec. 5 Transportation and Environment Committee meeting. The new five-year stormwater permit became effective July 1, 2022 and expires July 2027. If you want to know how much you should be...

During the Nov. 29 San Jose City Council meeting, outgoing Mayor Sam Liccardo said the city has a homeless housing marketing problem. He’s right on the money: San Jose residents want homeless housing, just not near their homes. There is clearly a lack of trust and confidence by many neighborhoods that homeless housing solutions and...

San Jose like other parts of the country is dealing with the harsh realities of past racial injustice. This has sparked “equity lens” and fairness conversations in the city’s budgeting of vital services. One of the undeniable wrongs that can’t be ignored is redlining. Redlining was a practice of creating racially segregated neighborhoods in every...

San Jose held a study session on Nov. 1 during the regularly scheduled city council meeting. It was the fourth they’ve held over the last several years. The city hired Century Urban LLC to perform a conceptual feasibility analysis and then brought several Urban Land Institute members to give their perspective on the difficulty of building...

Parking requirements have been reduced in some new housing developments with the advent of AB 2097. San Jose has been touted as leading this and the state following course. That is clearly not the case. San Jose officials voted in June to “craft a policy to eliminate parking minimums.” They should not be given credit...

California passed several housing bills before the end of the current legislative session. Assembly Bill 2011 enacts a streamlined ministerial approval by cities comparable to Senate Bill 35, for multi-family projects on commercial zoned land that meet certain provisions. Those include prevailing wages and affordable housing requirements. The bill would allow housing projects to be...