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The Pleasanton Planning Commission voted 3-1 last week to recommend that the City Council approve a number of documents that would bring developers one step closer to beginning construction of nearly 200 new homes in East Pleasanton — and the city one step closer to annexing that project site.
Also known as the Arroyo Lago residential development, the project in unincorporated Pleasanton will now go back to the City Council at a later date for councilmembers to vote on approving those related documents, which includes a pre-annexation and development agreement.
“I think there are some good things about this project,” Commissioner Ken Morgan said in regard to the project during the June 24 commission meeting. “I think the developers worked hard to design homes that seem to have good objective type standards and (have) worked really hard over a long period of time in making great faith efforts to build a community that will be enjoyed by the people living there.”
Redevelopment of East Pleasanton has been a point of discussion within the city’s government for more than a decade. According to Steve Riley, co-founder of project applicant 330 Land Company, his company first filed plans for the project with Alameda County back in 2017.
At the time, the city had restarted discussions to move forward with its East Pleasanton Specific Plan — a strategic planning process that would have helped shape future developments in the area — which is why the company decided to put the project on hold. But once the city went back and decided not to continue working on the specific plan, Riley said his team decided to file another application with the county in 2022.
That county version of project was approved in February by the Board of Supervisors and includes more units and an offsite sewer treatment facility.
But in 2024, the Pleasanton City Council directed staff to study the pros and cons of annexing the project into the city’s boundaries. After some further discussions and a workshop, the council eventually gave staff the green light to mobilize on drafting key terms for a pre-annexation and development agreement.
According to Steve Dunn, a senior managing director at SteelWave, which owns the land where the project is located, the move by the city was something they supported and is the reason the design team has been willing to make certain changes from the county project. However, he also noted that they do have a county project ready to go.
“We really want to be in the city as well,” Dunn told the commission last week. “We think it is the best solution. We are confident, though, that the county solution is a solution. That there isn’t a risk … out there.”
During the public meeting, the commission reviewed the project details and related documents, including General Plan amendments, rezoning, planned unit development plan and vesting tentative subdivision map.
If approved by the council at a later date, the Arroyo Lago project will construct 189 new single-family homes with 159 of those being two-story homes and 30 being one-story homes on the property east of Valley Avenue and Busch Road, north of Stanley Boulevard and south of Arroyo Mocho. The lot sizes for these homes would range from 3,500 square feet to 5,652 square feet.
The project would also build 48, deed-restricted junior accessory dwelling units, also known as JADU’s. Those will range in size from 170 square feet to 212 square feet and would be connected to the main home.
A park would also be built in the middle of the entire project that would be owned by the project’s homeowners association but will be made available to the greater public, and a community facilities district would be formed to finance shared infrastructure at the site.
During the last City Council discussion, some of the things the members asked the applicants to change in the project’s design were lower grading and making all of the homes on the west side of the site single stories so that neighbors in those existing homes would have more privacy.
While everyone on the Planning Commission agreed that the city should move forward with annexing the project into the city’s boundaries and allowing it to be constructed, Commissioner Dave Jagoe said he wished the project would have gone through the commission first before the City Council discussed its design.
In particular, he pointed to the row of 30 single-family homes that runs from north to south without any breaks in the street. However, that did not mean he wanted to vote against the project, he just did not agree with it coming to the commission so late in the design process.
“I think, in general, it would be a highly negative scenario for the city of Pleasanton to lose this project,” Jagoe said. “We would like to see this project go through with the annexation.”
The other major point of discussion during last week’s meeting was the amount of money the developer would contribute toward the construction of an El Charro Road extension.
One of the key terms in the pre-annexation and development agreement was having 330 Land Company contribute $3 million for the design and construction of an El Charro Road extension, which residents, staff and the City Council previously said is an important piece to the puzzle regarding future East Pleasanton developments.
Morgan said his main concern with the $3 million is the precedent it could set for other development projects in the East Pleasanton area — and how, if those projects follow suit in not anteing up enough money, the city will be short tens of millions of dollars for the El Charro Road construction.
Commissioner Stephanie Wedge agreed with Morgan’s point and had even asked the applicant if they would be willing to put up more money, to which he simply replied that they were willing to put up the $3 million.
Staff noted how the City Council also shared similar concerns.
However, Mike Tassano, the city’s traffic engineer, said that even if all developers for all of the other projects slated for future construction in that area were to come up with their fair share for the El Charro extension, the city would still need to find a way to come up with its own half.
Tassano said the main way the city would pay for El Charro construction would be through “traffic impact fees, of which we don’t currently have $35 million sitting, waiting to throw into the pot”.
Instead, he said one option would be to have the city commit to paying for the southern half of the construction, which would be more costly, so that the developers could commit to paying for the northern part of the road’s construction. He also said that given the development agreement’s 10-year lifespan, he is confident the city will find other ways to secure funding for the road’s construction.
The discussion ended with the agreement that the commission would recommend the City Council approve the related documents for the project, with the caveat that they consider having the project developer ante up $8 million instead of the $3 million.
Commission Chair Brandon Pace was the only one who voted against the proposal because he wanted the council to really consider the recommendation.
“I’m going to go no because I want this to get lots of attention from the City Council,” Pace said ahead of the 3-1 vote — with Commissioner Anurag Jain absent.
