After two years of community task force meetings, market
research and city staff time, the Morgan Hill city council approved
the updated housing element, identifying the city’s residential
needs as the population grows over the next seven years.
After two years of community task force meetings, market research and city staff time, the Morgan Hill city council approved the updated housing element, identifying the city’s residential needs as the population grows over the next seven years.
Encouraging to council members and city staff was the document’s conclusion that the city will require significantly fewer new homes than did the previous element covering the years 1999 to 2006.
Plus, the update indicated that the city has been successful at ensuring that homes have been built that are affordable to all income levels.
“We’ve managed to accommodate a variety of income levels, often in the same neighborhoods,” Councilman Greg Sellers said. “When folks can live and work here the quality of life for them and their families improves dramatically.”
The housing element updated Wednesday covers the period 2007 to 2014, and projects the need for 1,312 new dwellings.
The previous element said the city required 2,484 new housing units.
The decline in needs is due to the Association of Bay Area Governments’ shift of priorities on where new housing should be developed as the Bay Area’s population is expected to jump by 1.2 million people by 2025, city staff said. The city of Morgan Hill agrees with the change of location priorities, which say that new homes should be built along major transit corridors – such as close to areas that have robust public transportation systems.
Part of the intent of such a strategy is to keep new development more dense and in urban areas, rather than in suburban communities such as Morgan Hill.
“That puts less of a burden on the city to try to generate excess housing units,” Morgan Hill interim community development Director Steve Piasecki said.
The housing element is part of the city’s general plan, and state law requires it to be updated every seven years.
Its purpose is primarily to ensure the city has enough undeveloped land, and the proper zoning to accommodate the needs so it can plan for the future. The updated element determined that there is currently sufficient property in Morgan Hill’s city limits to satisfy projected housing needs.
Morgan Hill housing needs, number of units by income level
Extremely low income ($31,850*)
1999-2006: 228
2007-2014: 159
Very low ($53,050*)
1999-2006: 227
2007-2014: 158
Moderate ($126,600*)
1999-2006: 615
2007-2014: 246
Above moderate
1999-2006: 1,186
2007-2014: 500
*For a four-person household
