Increasing housing density where there is no convenient access to public rail transit increases Vehicle Miles Traveled (VMT) and air pollution. Fewer mass transit options in residential neighborhoods to offset VMT. Valley Transportation Authority Light Rail System has cut services to residential areas and even closed light rails.

Zero Off-Street Parking Requirements. Under the new framework, developers are expected to build 3-story multi-unit structures with no off-street parking mandates. Eliminating garage and driveway requirements will permanently flood residential neighborhood streets with vehicles, causing massive parking gridlock and dangerous traffic bottlenecking.

Enriching Developers over Local Families. Forcing high-density rental complexes onto every block strips families of their right to choose a quiet, single-family neighborhood. Furthermore, this framework heavily rewards corporate investors and developers. By maximizing market-rate rentals over entry-level properties, first-time homebuyers will routinely be outbid by profit-driven developers.

Abandoning the Urban Village Strategy. San José’s established, fiscally sustainable Urban Village strategy was designed to cluster high-density housing safely along transit corridors. Instead of prioritizing and completing these vibrant, infrastructure-ready villages, the planning commission is pivoting to a chaotic, blanket citywide up-zoning approach before the original plan has even been fully realized or proven viable. 

Silencing Neighborhood Voices with "By-Right" Rules. This massive policy shift has moved forward with almost zero community outreach to the families it directly impacts. Worse, adopting "by-right" unit permitting means developers can bypass future public notifications, planning votes, and community feedback. Your community will be entirely stripped of its local voice, only finding out about a 16+ unit project next door when the heavy demolition equipment arrives.

First-time home buyers could be outbid by profit motivated investors/developers who could make more money constructing 4 to 6 units on a single property.

San José has done more than its fair share to address the regional housing shortage for decades. Other cities need to step up and do their fair share of the heavy lifting on housing. Los Gatos, Saratoga, Los Altos, Palo Alto, and other cities in SCC need to ramp up housing production. This a regional issue, San Jose has been lifting the burden and addressing the housing shortage as a long-time bedroom community for SCC.

Let's try to keep the ambiance and character of San Jose single family home neighborhoods intact! Spread the word on this important issue.

Note: This picture is from San Jose already!

Loss of Our Urban Forests. Over 50% of San José’s tree canopy thrives directly within single-family backyard lots. Setting a 32 units/acre framework (excluding ADUs) forces extensive lot coverage and leaves setbacks as narrow as 18 inches. This ensures the permanent removal of mature neighborhood trees, stripping away our natural cooling systems and severely aggravating localized urban heat island effects. 

Exceeding Safe Limits and State Mandates. The city's own financial evaluations state that only strategic, high-density development (45+ units/acre in Urban Villages) creates enough municipal tax revenue to cover the long-term city services they require. Pushing mid-tier blanket density across residential zones adds a permanent financial drain to San José’s structural budget deficit. This local proposal goes far beyond the safety caps set by state laws like SB9 or SB1123, placing a severe financial and administrative burden squarely on the backs of local taxpayers.