San Jose staff proposes consolidating and streamlining urban village planning as SB 79 looms

San Jose planning staff on Tuesday presented four recommendations intended to accelerate urban village planning and unlock housing capacity across the city, while warning that new state law, SB 79, complicates mapping and next steps.

"Staff has four preliminary recommendations to address strategy P40 of the housing element," Cora McNaughton, a planner with the Planning Division, told the Envision San Jose 2040 task force, listing consolidation of transit-corridor villages, a streamlined process for neighborhood villages, clearer outreach limits and simplified plan text as the proposed changes. Jared Ferguson, principal planner, said the work supports the general plans focused-growth strategy.

Why it matters: Staff said accelerating village planning will help make more parcels eligible for mixed-use and residential development, a critical step toward meeting the citys housing allocation of 62,200 units by 2031. The proposals aim to reduce the number of separate planning processes for unplanned villages from 42 to roughly 14 (or 15 planning processes including a targeted rezoning package), with 6 combined station-area plans and 8 commercial-center plans.

Key details and numbers cited by staff: - The city has 62 urban villages; 16 village plans are completed (staff said 43% of village land area is currently under an adopted or in-progress plan). - Staff reported the signature project…