One of the things I’ve learned working in city planning is that you cannot wait until a major deadline is in front of you to start preparing for it.

The most important long-range planning decisions usually happen years earlier.

Next week, the City Council will consider recommendations coming out of San José’s General Plan Four-Year Review. The item includes several significant questions about where we create additional housing capacity, how we respond to changing State housing law, and how we continue to balance housing growth with jobs, services and the other land uses a city needs.

Those decisions matter on their own.

But they are also part of something bigger.

San José’s next Housing Element is due in January 2031. Five years may sound like plenty of time, but the work needed to prepare for it is sequential. We cannot simply arrive in 2030, determine how many homes San José is required to plan for, and then start looking for places to accommodate them.

We need to build the foundation now.

A Housing Element has to demonstrate that the City has realistic opportunities to meet its housing obligations under State law. That means more than identifying theoretical housing capacity on a map. Our General Plan policies, land-use designations, zoning, development standards and environmental work all need to support that capacity.

Each step depends on the work that came before it.

The Four-Year Review helps establish the policy direction. From there, we can begin the more detailed work of updating the General Plan and Zoning Code and completing the necessary analysis. That, in turn, puts San José in a much stronger position when we begin preparing the next Housing Element.

When planners talk about creating housing capacity, it can sometimes sound as though every property identified for additional capacity will immediately be redeveloped.

That is not what it means.

The General Plan establishes what could happen over time. Whether development actually occurs depends on many other factors, including property owners, financing, market conditions, infrastructure and individual project decisions.

But having adequate capacity matters. State law requires cities to demonstrate that they have enough realistic opportunities to accommodate their housing obligations.

The question, then, is not simply how much capacity we can create.

It is where additional housing makes sense, what other community needs need to be considered, and how we create enough flexibility to respond to future requirements without making rushed decisions later.

Transit matters. Infrastructure matters. Existing businesses matter. Schools, services and employment lands matter. So does the character and function of the surrounding community.

Planning means considering all of those things together.

This work is also happening at a time when California housing law continues to evolve.

The State is increasingly establishing rules that affect where and how housing can be built. That makes it even more important for cities to think strategically about the decisions that remain within local control.

For San José, that means understanding where State law is already changing the development landscape, where additional locally planned capacity makes sense, and how our General Plan should evolve to support the City we want to become.

We do not yet know what San José’s housing allocation will be for the next Housing Element cycle. We do not know what additional State laws will be adopted between now and 2031. And we cannot know exactly what the housing market will look like five years from now.

What we can do is prepare for those uncertainties.

That is really what this work is about.

The decisions before the Council next week are one step in a much longer sequence. They help establish the framework for the detailed planning work that follows. That work prepares us for the next Housing Element. And the Housing Element will help guide another eight years of housing planning in San José.

Long-range planning works best when we give ourselves time to make thoughtful choices instead of waiting until deadlines force them.

That is the approach we are taking now.

And as this work moves forward, I hope residents, businesses, advocates and the development community will continue to follow the conversation, challenge our assumptions and keep asking us good questions.

Chris Burton
Director, Department of Planning, Building and Code Enforcement