San Jose residents may be asked to support subsidized housing for Alum Rock Union School District teachers on the November ballot. The East San Jose school district is exploring whether creating below-market housing for its workers is possible. If officials find it is, the district will look to voters to fund the roughly $27 million...
UPDATE: Santa Clara County buys land for more affordable housing
Santa Clara County is acquiring more land to build hundreds of affordable homes for disadvantaged residents. On Tuesday, the Board of Supervisors voted unanimously to purchase four properties in San Jose, Santa Clara and Morgan Hill, which will cost the county more than $17 million and provide 324 apartments. “I really want to just acknowledge...
VTA bets big on housing in Santa Clara County
Transit comes first at VTA, but the San Jose agency sees a big future in residential real estate. Earlier this month, VTA announced several significant updates about housing projects being built on agency-owned land, also known as transit-oriented developments (TODs). On March 9, California invested $29 million to build a 569-unit housing project near Tamien...
Silicon Valley residents say state ‘death tax’ should go
An anti-tax movement is working in Silicon Valley and elsewhere in California to gut a law that taxes transfers of inherited property. An estimated 8,000 volunteers for the nonprofit Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association have been collecting signatures across California to put a measure on the November ballot to repeal part of Prop. 19. Approved in...
Silicon Valley, state renters struggling to get relief
Barriers to COVID-related rent relief have placed thousands of renters in Santa Clara County and throughout California in desperate circumstances as they struggle to avoid eviction. A new survey documents common problems facing tenants in Santa Clara County and 26 other counties in California, using data provided by 58 organizations and partners that help tenants...
New state law yields no housing projects in San Jose—yet
San Jose residents have yet to use a law that lets them build denser developments in single-family neighborhoods—at least for now. On Jan. 1, Senate Bill 9 went into effect across California. The law allows residents to subdivide lots to create up to four housing units per parcel. The San Jose City Council approved implementing the law last...
Palo Alto offers more help to renters facing eviction
The Palo Alto City Council is expanding relocation assistance to include more renters, but the only long-time renting councilmember could not participate. The council voted 5-1 Monday to pass an emergency ordinance requiring landlords of smaller residential buildings to pay relocation assistance to tenants during evictions. An existing law already requires the owners of buildings...
Not all Santa Clara County cities see new state housing law the same way
Cities across California are deciding if they are going to welcome or fight a statewide housing bill that could change the makeup of neighborhoods. Senate Bill 9, effective as of Jan. 1, allows property owners to build additional housing on an existing lot which they could then sell. Homeowners on lots larger than 1,200 square feet...
UPDATE: San Jose school district approves Glider Elementary sale to housing developer
The Oak Grove School District board of trustees voted unanimously Thursday to sell the shuttered Glider Elementary School to a housing developer, despite the pleas of numerous residents. The 9.5-acre site at 511 Cozy Drive in South San Jose is being sold to the True Life Companies for $26.6 million. The developer plans to build...
Fire damages ‘nightmare’ house in downtown San Jose
A landlord accused of abusing city housing policies to enrich herself is now facing allegations of neglect from tenants at a building gutted by a fire last week. The fire that broke out on Jan. 9 consumed part of a blue Victorian house at 139 N. Sixth St., just a couple blocks from San Jose City...