Dear City Council and Staff,
Thank you so much for the many hours of work that have gone into the Housing Element Update over the last two years. I was able to read the updated Housing Element for tonight’s Council meeting and I saw that HCD had requested additional analysis for the sites list.
I’ve noticed some of the opportunity sites on the list have “for lease” signs out front (some for quite awhile now!) and I did some quick Googling to see which addresses might have active-looking “for lease” advertisements online.
I created the attached spreadsheet which lists the opportunity sites and URLs of active lease listings for the properties. Or, where I couldn’t find any active listings, if relevant I mentioned something else that caught my eye about the property, such as a comparable listing for sale or under contract.
I was inspired by Mountain View’s Housing Element (recently approved by HCD), where I noticed discussion of office/space vacancies in their opportunity sites analysis. You’ve probably taken a look at lease listings for the opportunity sites as well, but just in case it’s helpful, I wanted to share what I found in terms of up-to-date information. Some of the listings represent large portions of the buildings — or even the entire building.
This feels like a unique moment for Bay Area office space owners who may be more motivated to convert office to housing than ever before (I know it’s a huge conversation in San Francisco). And the extent of the vacancies at commercial sites on the list might be helpful to bolster the case with HCD of how much opportunity is within these parcels.
Thank you again,
Brittani Baxter
District 3 resident
