Explainer

We need your voice to make sure the Cupertino City Council adequately addresses our housing crisis—rents and home prices have dramatically soared because cities like Cupertino have not done enough to address housing affordability. If we do not advance an ambitious housing element, we will further inequality and racism in the South Bay. Additionally, young voices are not being adequately captured in this housing element update.

What is the housing element?

Every 8 years, every city in California has to update its housing programs and policies—this collective update forms the housing element, which becomes the official law of the city’s general plan (its constitution basically). This housing element update has new requirements to advance equity and accountability measures to make sure cities are planning for enough housing at all income levels.

What will make an ambitious housing element?

An ambitious housing element would ensure Cupertino does the following to the best of its ability:

1. Plan for housing at all income levels to meet the housing needs of everyone, including young people who deserve to be able to move back here one day.

2. “Affirmatively further fair housing” — a state requirement which seeks to address residential segregation, both within the city and in relationship to the rest of the region

3. Protects renters from displacement.

4. Preserves existing housing.

Because of the intersectional interests the De Anza population represents, it stands as the largest stakeholder with respect to fair housing considerations in the City of Cupertino. The College is therefore an essential component of the City’s mission to “affirmatively further fair housing,” a standard now legally required by the State of California for the Housing Element in every municipality’s General Plan. As such, the City Council, staff, and consultants must plan a substantial amount of housing at all income levels for students, faculty, and workers at De Anza College for the upcoming update to Cupertino’s Housing Element for the 2023-2031 Regional Housing Needs Assessment (6th Cycle RHNA), if we are to adequately address regional segregation and the housing needs within our community. As the Foothill-De Anza Community College District noted recently, “a contributor to the scarcity of affordable housing is that some of our local communities have not embraced this type of housing in the past.” This would include Cupertino.

The Needs

The De Anza College community is the most housing-insecure demographic within the entire City of Cupertino.

• In a 2018 study conducted by the College, 60% of respondents said they were transportation insecure (most likely lacking an automobile), 56% reported being housing insecure, and 18% reported being homeless.

Is Cupertino planning an ambitious housing element?

No. The Cupertino City Council wants to count “pipeline” projects (proposed but not yet built housing in the pipeline) that are unlikely to ever actually get built for 3/4 of its housing production requirements.

This means that Cupertino is likely under planning by over a thousand homes, including affordable housing. This includes a project of several hundred homes known as the Hamptons, which would displace hundreds of current Cupertino renters in the process.

Additionally, the City Council has resisted reforms that allow for more height or density of housing projects, even though these reforms are necessary for realistically meeting our affordable housing requirements. Scaling affordable housing projects by the hundreds or thousands, generally requires the ability to build upward.