Hello friends and neighbors, 

In light of recent posts, I wanted to get out a message about housing in Brentwood. Yesterday, I went over the entire City’s Residential Housing Projects list, and I’ve also looked back at my numbers from 3/21/19, the date I validated the numbers used on the Alliance for a Better Brentwood website with Debbie Hall, City Planner. In March, the housing numbers for pending, approved and under construction in Brentwood was 3,868. Oh, and you betcha I’m counting the 2,000 or so housing units in PA-1 below Home Depot and on both sides of the Bypass – those are planned and adopted by the 12 members of the PA-1 Committee for that area, and adopted by our City Council on 11/13/18. Total housing in March, 5,868. To go back to 2017, the numbers were 1,839 SF units occupied; 446 SF units under construction 2,521 SF units not yet built; 476 MF units not yet built.

Fast forward to today, and our battle to hold the Urban Limit Line for housing we don’t need. As of yesterday, housing either approved or under construction, 2,402; add applications pending and you get 2,733. Apartments/multi-family approved or under construction, 166; add apps pending, 870. Total, 3603 + PA-1 housing units forecast = 5,603.

Erik Nolthenius is getting me the numbers on Trilogy in the next day or two, but it is almost completely built out. Whatever phase housing starts are in, you still count all of the housing units available and planned when trying to assess housing needs. The Association of Bay Area Governments has only dictated that Brentwood provide 760 housing units through October 31, 2022.

Whomever are buying new homes in Brentwood, as well as all the resale homes, are adding to the impacts on City services, roads, commutes, etc. I’m not knocking our population and resident growth, just pointing out there is enough housing opportunity in Brentwood now and in the future, and that’s just what’s on the books right now. What we don’t have is adequate fire/emergency services, good jobs, infrastructure, schools, retail, you name it. We need to concentrate on improving these things inside our City limits first and foremost.

Now, let’s go over the over 55 active adult housing. We have 3,113 over 55 active adult housing units in Brentwood. Add in approved and under construction, Brentwood CC (Blackhawk), Brentwood Country Club (Blackhawk), Pioneer Square/Barcelona Trilogy (Shea) and Cowell Ranch (Blackhawk) in the works, another 299. We also have Merrill Gardens, a 123-unit assisted living facility ready to break ground by Summerset 1. Nearby, Antioch’s 1,177 housing unit project, The Ranch has plans for Antioch’s first ever, large-scale over 55 housing development; add in the Albers Ranch project of common market, over 55 and possible assisted living facility in the Sand Creek Focus Area, another 301 units. You see where I’m going here? Do you see any Blackhawk trends? Blackhawk also has their project in the Antioch Sand Creek Focus Area around Kaiser, The Vineyards @ Sand Creek-337 under construction, looks like a total of 641 more approved. Interesting the developers keep calling their developments “The Vineyards” and “The Ranch” – another trend in the snow job of paving over land almost designated as such.

I will announce any corrections to this post when Brentwood’s Planning Manager and Planners respond to my inquiries. Trying to be as factual as possible in light of a ballot initiative asking us to move our ULL for 2,400 housing units, and along with that, authorizing the law to circumvent all the City processes used to plan for our future as the mood strikes them. Thanks for the opportunity to post the opposition message.

Kathy