San Jose launches accelerated four‑year review of Envision San Jose 2040 to address housing shortfalls and urban‑village backlog

San Jose city council and the planning commission convened a joint study session to begin the city’s third four‑year review of the Envision San Jose 2040 general plan, a process staff said must be completed on an accelerated schedule to ensure the city can meet new state housing requirements and avoid losing local control over land use.

The review, led by Chris Burton, director of planning, building & code enforcement, will focus on four topics: increasing residential capacity, addressing missing‑middle housing, re‑examining the jobs‑to‑employed‑resident ratio and streamlining planning for urban villages. Burton told the joint session that “planning takes a long time” and stressed the need to start now to align future environmental review, general plan changes and the next housing element cycle.

Why it matters: San Jose’s housing allocation for the 2023–2031 housing element cycle is 62,000 units, a number staff said far exceeds recent production rates and stretches existing capacity. At the same time, state laws adopted since 2018 — including SB 9, SB 35, SB 330 and others — have narrowed local discretion on zoning and review, complicating San Jose’s long‑standing strategies for focused growth and employment‑land preservation.

What staff presented - Background and scale: Planning staff summarized 30 years of land‑use choices that shaped today’s map: roughly half the city’s 180 square miles is public open space, about 37% is residential land (largely single‑family), and roughly 14% is…