Liang - Job-Housing Balance in Cupertino is Better Than Santa Clara County Average and Most Surrounding Cities

From: Liang-Fang Chao
Date: Thu, Feb 15, 2018 at 9:02 AM
Subject: Fwd: Job-Housing Balance in Cupertino is Better Than Santa Clara County Average and Most Surrounding Cities
To: City Council <citycouncil@cupertino.org>

Dear Mayor Paul and City Council Members,

This blog article draws data from the LAFCO Cities Services Report, based on 2014 census data. It shows that the job-jousing balance is much better than Santa Clara County and most of surrounding cities.

I hope the City can prepare a similar report to set the record straight since some recent media articles referencing Apple Park and Cupertino appear to be ignorant such differences in  job-housing ratios.

I would like to thank you for listening to the community in December 2014 so that the proposed 3.5 million square feet increase in office space was postponed. However, you have approved 2 million square feet for Vallco at the time, pending the approval of Vallco Specific Plan by May 2018. Since then, no one in their right mind ever supported such massive allocation of office space. 

Sand Hill already got 260,000 square feet of office space at Main Street plus 35,000 square feet as incubator space. Way more than 100,000 sqft in the initial approval. They should be satisfied with what they have now.

No group in the Feb. 5 kickoff meeting mentioned office. It’s time to remove the massive office allocation now so that the expectation is clear in the Vallco Specific Plan process. The city council should be in control in the negotiation table, not the developer.

Cupertino has been a good citizen in the County by maintaining a good job-housing balance. Let’s maintain our good record. Remove the 2 million sqft office allocation from Vallco Specific Plan now.

Regards,

Liang 

---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: Liang-Fang Chao
Date: Thu, Feb 15, 2018 at 2:45 AM

Subject: Job-Housing Balance in Cupertino is Better Than Santa Clara County Average and Most Surrounding Cities

Finally finished the article to support Darcy's statement.
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Job-Housing Balance in Cupertino is Better Than Santa Clara County Average and Most Surrounding Cities
http://bettercupertino.blogspot.com/2018/02/job-housing-balance-in-cupertino-is.html

The root cause of the housing crisis is that there have been excessive job growth, while the housing growth has not been able to keep pace with the rate of job growth. This imbalance is especially significant at some cities where there are 2 or 3 jobs for each employed resident.

Cupertino has maintained pretty good balance between jobs and housing, more balanced than Santa Clara County average.

The job-housing ratio in Cupertino is in fact pretty balanced according to this LAFCO Cities Services report derived from 2014 census data (http://www.santaclara.lafco.ca.gov/file/ServiceReviews/CitiesSR2015/2CSRR_ExecSumm.pdf). The LAFCO Cities Services is a "state-mandated comprehensive studies of services within a designated geographic area."

In Santa Clara County as a whole, the job-to-employed resident ratio is 1.18. For every employed resident, there is 1.18 jobs. The ratio of Cupertino is 1.08, below the County average. 

Here are the job-to-employed resident ratios for Cupertino and surrounding cities, in asending order. The ratio in Cupertino is much better than other surrounding cities.

Sunnyvale: 1.07

Cupertino 1.08

Santa Clara County Overall: 1.18 

Campbell 1.35

Milpitas 1.50
Mountain View: 1.79

Los Gato 1.83
Santa Clara: 2.08
Palo Alto: 3.02 

"The jobs/employed-residents ratio measures the balance between where people work and where people live. A balance closer to parity (i.e., 1.0) suggests there is sufficient housing in the community relative to the number of people who work in the community. This does not necessarily mean that the people who live in a city work there, but aggregated for several cities, the jobs/employed-resident ratio begins to paint a picture of where imbalances exist. It shows which communities “export” workers to other places (a ratio below 1.0) and which communities must import workers from other places (more than 1.0)." (From LAFCO Cities Services report)

Another data set provided by the LAFCO report is the job-to-housing ratio. There are 27,950 jobs in Cupertino and 20,494 housing units. The job-housing ratio is 1.36. There are 1.36 jobs per housing unit. It is pretty balanced since the ABAG guideline is 1.5 jobs per housing unit. The job-housing ratio of the entire Santa Clara County is 1.63. So, the job-house ratio of Cupertino is much more balanced then Santa Clara County average.

Here are job-to-housing ratio for Cupertino and surrounding cities, in asending order.
The ratio in Cupertino is much better than other surrounding cities.

Cupertino 1.36
Sunnyvale: 1.43
Santa Clara County Overall: 1.63 
Campbell 1.77
Los Gatos 1.91
Milpitas 2,35
Mountain View: 2.37
Santa Clara: 2.73
Palo Alto: 3.49 

"A similar measure is the ratio of jobs to housing available within a community. Used for years as a key urban planning tool, the jobs/housing balance measures the jobs available based on the number of homes in a community." (LAFCO Report)
ABAG considers 1.5 jobs/housing unit as a balanced ratio.

Cupertino has maintained a good job-housing balance in the past. 
Apple Park is built on a previous HP site with only 750,000 extra square feet of office space. Not millions of square feet of brand new office space as seen in other cities, like Mountain View or Santa Clara, With Apple Park, it is projected to "add" 2500 jobs (from the 750,000 extra sf added).

Cupertino's General Plan has included 4421 new housing units to be built by 2040. The General Plan includes residential zoning for both sides of Stevens Creek and the west side of De Anza. These 4421 units are expected to be spread out among different sites in the City and built over 25 years. Each 8-year of Housing Element cycle could build 1000-1500 units.

As Mayor Darcy Paul pointed out in his State of the City Address, there is no "dire need" in Cupertino to build thousands of units. Cupertino has a pretty good job-housing balance today. Although Apple Park will add some more jobs, Cupertino has plans to build more over time in order to maintain the balance.