Liang - Vallco impact on housing demand and rental price

From: Liang C

Date: Sun, Nov 15, 2015 at 12:58 PM
Subject: Comment on Vallco EIR - impact on housing demand
To: "City of Cupertino Planning Dept." planning@cupertino.org

RE: Comment on Vallco EIR

Please study the impact on the demand on housing market and rental price, since this will determine where the new workers will live and how long they will have to commute in and how congested the highway will be.

Please study where the new workers will reside in since there is not much available housing units in Cupertino or surrounding cities.

Please include in your study all ongoing office construction within at least 20 miles radius since all of workers in these buildings will add to the demand on housing and the demand on transportation for commuting. And please include all proposed office construction also.

Please study the impact on rental prices from studio to 1 bedroom to two bedrooms. The rental rate is already more than $4,000 for 2 bedroom apartments. Cupertino has about 32,000 workers. The addition of 14,000 workers from Apple Campus 2 and 1000 from Main Street plus 10,000 from Vallco will essentially increase the working population by 50%. Thus, the demand on rental partment might increase by 50% also. How many of the current residents will be displaced when the rent goes even higher?

Please use realistic numbers of 2010 or later to estimate the number of employees that can be accommodated in a given office space. The space per employee maybe 300 square feet 20 years ago. It has become 200 square feet 10 years ago. And nowadays the space per employee has become 150 square feet per employee. Please use a realistic standard.

In 2010, ABAG estimates an increase of 4,421 housing units by 2040. ABAG also estimates that the office space will increase by 43,300 square feet per year.

However, Cupertino will have an addition of 3.5 million square feet of new office space opening in 2017 from Apple Campus 2 alone.

Main Street already added 260,000 square feet of office space, just opened in 2014.

The Hills at Vallco will add another 2 million square feet of new office space.

That's 5.76 million square feet of additional new office space on top of the current housing demand and commute flow.

(Note: Apple Campus 2 may have only added 750,000 square feet in terms of office allocation in Cupertino's General Plan. But the fact remains that the 3.5 million square feet of new office will be added on top of the current housing demand and commute flow.)

3,500,000 s.f./43,300 s.f. per year= 80.8 years

5,760,000s.f./ 43,300 s.f. per year = 133 years

The office space added to Apple Campus 2 is equivalent to 80.8 years of office according to ABAG's estimation of 43,400 s.f. per year of office growth.

The office space added from Apple Campus 2, Main Street and Vallco will be equivalent to 133 years of office growth according to ABAG's estimation of 43,400 s.f. per year of office growth.

How many housing units will be required by ABAG to compensate for 133 years of office growth by the next Housing Element cycle in 2023?

133 years/25 years = 5.32.

Would we be required to build 5.32 times more housing units then?

If that's an over estimate, please provide a more realistic estimate based on real data.

Thanks.

Liang Chao