COUNCIL AGENDA: 11/29/22 ITEM: 8.3 TO: HONORABLE MAYOR AND FROM: Councilmember Sergio Jimenez CITY COUNCIL SUBJECT: SEE BELOW DATE: November 29, 2022 ______________________ Approved: DATE: 11/29/2022 _______________________________________________ SUBJECT: CITY INITIATIVES ROADMAP – EMERGENCY HOUSING SYSTEM EXPANSION: QUICK-BUILD EMERGENCY INTERIM HOUSING RECOMMENDATION 1. Accept the memorandum authored by Councilmember Cohen; 2. Remove VTA owned Cottle Road site AND Highway 85 South at Great Oaks Boulevard Off Ramp site from consideration at the present time and pursue staff policy Alternative #1 which directs staff to pursue Highway 85 South at Santa Teresa Boulevard On Ramp; 3. Continue exploration of sites in other Districts, including District 10 and report back to council if further revision of siting criteria needs to be evaluated to unlock additional sites. BACKGROUND I greatly appreciate the depth of information provided by staff and the challenge to siting EIH and balancing the services residents desire, reminds us of how challenging yet important these issues are to everyone involved- from cost, community concerns, expediency of finding locations, to construction. Although we remain resolute in moving this issue forward, we need to be mindful of equity issues. District 2 and South San Jose have been at the forefront of emergency interim housing solutions. Per staff report, District 2 has 214 Emergency Housing beds (p. 19 of staff report), with the expansion of the Rue Ferrari site and the development of Branham/Monterey roughly 60% (800) of the total beds citywide will be concentrated in a small radius of South San Jose. Additionally, we recently approved the city’s first RV safe parking program which will also be located in this same area.
Further troubling for residents is that most of the sites current being evaluated in District 10 are on the border of District 2. Now residents don’t necessarily recognize boundaries, but they do recognize the unique concentration of recommendations. For example, in attachment A, the potential sites for District 4 and District 10 are listed. District 4 evaluated sites number 37, some proposed by D4 office, some by partners, and some by city staff. In contrast, District 10 evaluated sites number 11 with 4/10 being on the border of District 2, not too far from the existing/proposed EIH developments. Due to the current disproportionate placement of the VTA owned Cottle Road site AND Highway 85 South at Great Oaks Boulevard Off Ramp I request that these locations be removed from consideration at the present time. Additionally, the VTA Cottle Site may be impacted by the future on-ramp re-alignment to Hwy 85 as well as the redevelopment of Kaiser Hospital making it the least desirable location on the list. San Jose is a city of over 180 square miles. I am confident that we can find suitable locations to safely house our most vulnerable residents across the city. I ask my council colleagues to be proactive in searching for locations particularly in districts that do not yet have EIHCs.