State green lights Cupertino’s housing plan for more than 4,500 new homes

The city submitted a plan to add more than 4,500 homes in the next decade.

More than a year after the deadline and being hit with a lawsuit over the delay, Cupertino has received a green light from state regulators for a housing plan to add more than 4,500 homes by 2031.

Every eight years, California law requires cities to submit a blueprint, known as a housing element, for how they will add a specific number of homes at a range of price points. The state Housing and Community Development Department (HCD) endorsed Cupertino’s housing element on Wednesday, bringing the city one step closer to resolving any penalties it faces for missing the Jan. 31 2023 deadline, including being subject to the builder’s remedy, a legal mechanism that allows developers to push through projects that are larger than local zoning laws would otherwise permit.

Now, the City Council and Planning Commission have to review and adopt the plan and related zoning ordinance amendments, which is expected to happen in mid-May, according to Mayor Sheila Mohan. The housing element will then be sent back to HCD for final approval.

“It’s a milestone. We’ve been waiting for this for a long time,” Mohan said. “I’m a long-term resident in the city, and to me it’s just validation of how excited we are to work with the community, the staff and the state to make sure we come up with a plan to welcome residents at all income levels and have a variety of housing options.”

The nine-county Bay Area is supposed to build more than 441,000 new homes by 2031 to meet housing demands, a roughly 15% increase in the region’s total housing stock. The counties must also allocate roughly 40% of those homes for people with low or very-low incomes. Of the 4,588 units proposed in Cupertino, 41% would be reserved for low-income residents.

More than half of the mixed-income residential units are slated to be built at The Rise, a housing project approved by the council last month on the site of the former Vallco Shopping Mall, which shut down in 2018 and is located near Interstate 280.

An earlier proposal for the site included a plethora of community benefits, including a new performing arts center, city hall and emergency response center. Legal challenges and council and resident division, however, resulted in a downsizing that cut those benefits, eventually leading to The Rise project.

When Cupertino missed the deadline last year for its housing element, pro-housing organizations YIMBY Law and the California Housing Defense filed a lawsuit against the city for noncompliance. They also served similar lawsuits in 11 Bay Area cities, including Palo Alto, Daly City and Burlingame. Cupertino’s legal battle ended in January, after the Santa Clara County Superior Court ruled that the city must allow builder’s remedy projects by developers who filed affordable housing projects after the 2023 deadline. The ruling is in effect until the housing element gets approved by HCD.

Neil Park-McClintick, president for the local pro-housing group Cupertino for All, said he’s excited to see the element certified. If the city has to meet its housing need, having its own guiding document that centers around housing preservation and renter protection is preferable to relying on builder’s remedy projects, he said.

Nearby cities that weren’t sued have also gotten their housing elements approved in the last few months. San Jose gained state approval in January and Sunnyvale followed in March. Recently, Los Gatos submitted its housing plan for review again while the Saratoga City Council is waiting for state approval.

Sonja Trauss, executive director of YIMBY Law, said Cupertino’s housing element, when implemented, will be vital to the city’s growth.

“They would have been better off if they did it earlier,” she said. “Cupertino is going to need more housing of all different types to accommodate people who live and work there in order to continue being a place of opportunity.”