— Before the November 2022 election —
Starting in mid-2022, the Cupertino City Council began working on the draft of the Housing Element. At that time, the council majority included Darcy Paul, Liang Chao, Kitty Moore, and Jon Willey. The city’s website featured an interactive map of housing projects location to collect residents input. Additionally, the city distributed newsletters encouraging residents to provide feedback and organized community meetings for outreach.
By the end of 2022, the council majority supported by Better Cupertino had drafted a Housing Element that included only 4,600 homes, which was slightly above the 4,588 homes required by the State. They collaborated with HCD in the final stages to complete the document before the Housing Element deadline of January 31, 2023.
— After the November 2022 election —
With a lead of less than 1% of the votes, YIMBY began to dominate the Cupertino Council with J.R. Fruen, Hung Wei and Sheila Mohan as the new council majority.
J.R. Fruen and his supporters opposed the Housing Element draft version started from 2022, saying it’s far from enough and abandoning it to develop a new one from the beginning of 2023. They worked on the new HE for about 19 months. During this period of delay for rework, several high-density projects were submitted under the Builder’s Remedy provision of State Law.
They continued to add more radical high-density projects to the new Housing Element, while Liang Chao and Kitty Moore, as the minority on the council, were unable to stop them. Since Better Cupertino lacked the power, it urged its supporters to write to the council to submit the Housing Element as quickly as possible (as noted in Better Cupertino’s previous newsletters). Meanwhile, YIMBY supporters repeatedly requested the council to delay the Housing Element to gain more opportunities to loosen zoning laws and benefit developers.
Let’s see what happened during the July 2nd council meeting. It was among tons of up-zoning meetings where the Fruen-Wei-Mohan majority overrode Liang Chao and Kitty Moore.
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What’s more, The current council majority excluded pipeline projects—such as portions of Vallco’s housing plan and several hundred apartment units in Hamptons project—from the Housing Element. The once avoidable Builder’s Remedy projects combined with the current council majority’s refusal to include pipeline projects in the Housing Element count has left Cupertino vulnerable to a 40% increase (8,000 homes) in the total number of residences with permission to be built in the next 8 years.
— Current Situation —
Recently, Cupertino submitted the Housing Element to the State. Does this mark the end of the Housing Element saga? The answer is NO. If YIMBY continues to dominate the Cupertino Council, the cycle of endless up-zoning without transparency will persist. It’s important to remember that the Housing Element only defines the starting point for up-zoning, not the final destination!
In fact, most projects included in the Housing Element have not yet submitted formal applications. One example is the Evulich Project by SummerHill, located next to the Linda Vista Park. With further loosening of zoning laws, when they do submit their plans, they will be able to build taller, denser buildings with fewer parking spaces. It would be worse than the current proposal of a 54-unit apartment on 2.5 acres of land.