Once again, a city council caves to neighborhood pressure and kills a desperately needed housing project — this time in San Jose, not Davis. But the story is eerily familiar: a proposed apartment complex near transit corridors, a campaign of organized neighborhood opposition, and elected officials retreating behind vague claims about “neighborhood character” and “right-sizing” development. It’s the California housing crisis on repeat.
Earlier this week, the San Jose City Council unanimously rejected a plan to build a 17-story apartment complex with 135 homes and 15,000 square feet of retail space at 826 N. Winchester Blvd. The vote came despite the building replacing a long-abandoned structure and being located on a major arterial street. Even after the developer, VCI Companies, offered to reduce the height to 11 stories, that wasn’t enough. The opposition had already framed the project as out of scale and out of character — familiar language to anyone who’s watched housing debates in cities across the state.
“We need housing of all types and for all income levels,” said District 6 Councilmember Michael Mulcahy, before proceeding to argue that this particular housing wasn’t quite right. The proposal, he claimed, was “inconsistent with San Jose’s general plan and was outsized for the Cory neighborhood.” Instead, he suggested, the area should be reexamined as part of a future general plan update — effectively punting on any real commitment to new housing in the present.
Opponents of the project filled city council chambers and an overflow room. They came with signs, matching outfits, and the rhetorical force of a well-organized NIMBY movement. Lindy Hayes, daughter of former San Jose Mayor Janet Gray Hayes, was quoted celebrating the outcome, calling it a “neighborhood effort” and thanking the council for “preserving the vibrancy of our neighborhood.”
But as housing advocates pointed out during the hearing, the voices that dominated the room don’t reflect the full breadth of the city’s housing needs. Alex Shoor, executive director of Catalyze SV, spoke plainly: “It’s crucial we talk about who isn’t here tonight: students coming home from college, working families, undocumented San Jose residents fearful right now, and the next generation of tech workers taking jobs here.”
He’s right. Housing policy isn’t just about those who can show up to a meeting on a Tuesday night. It’s about those who can’t — the people stuck in long commutes because they can’t afford to live near work, the renters squeezed by climbing prices, the young people who leave because there’s no room for them in the cities where they grew up. The council’s vote catered to the loudest voices in the room, not the most vulnerable or most affected.
This decision also highlights how easily cities can block housing without invoking anything like Davis’s restrictive Measure J. Here, San Jose didn’t need a citizen vote. It only took a few organized neighbors and a pliant council to kill a project outright. The language about general plans, “transit residential” zoning, and “right-sizing” development has become a bureaucratic shield for inaction. Meanwhile, the crisis grows.
San Jose’s own planning staff had warned that reclassifying the site as transit residential could actually work against the city’s broader housing and growth goals. But that analysis was brushed aside in favor of neighborhood appeasement.
Councilmember Mulcahy attempted to soften the blow by saying District 6 is already doing its “fair share,” noting that 23% of the city’s new housing is located in his district, which comprises just 10% of the population. But housing need doesn’t stop at percentages — especially when you’re rejecting projects in a city that is still nowhere near meeting its state-mandated housing targets.
This isn’t just about one apartment building. It’s about a pattern. Time and again, cities across California say they support housing in theory — “all types, all income levels” — but balk the moment it might slightly inconvenience a group of affluent homeowners. This dynamic is exactly why we are in a housing crisis. It’s why prices continue to soar, why working-class families are pushed to the margins, and why homelessness persists at tragic levels.
Until city leaders are willing to stand up to neighborhood obstruction and make decisions in the interest of long-term affordability and equity, nothing will change. Saying yes to housing isn’t easy. It requires political courage. Unfortunately, in San Jose this week, that courage was nowhere to be found.
Sound familiar? It should. Because it could be Davis. Or Palo Alto. Or Berkeley. Or Santa Monica. The town changes, but the excuses stay the same.
And so does the crisis.
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Breaking News Housing Opinion State of California
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Alex Shoor Catalyze SV Cory neighborhood District 6 Janet Gray Hayes Measure J Michael Mulcahy San Jose VCI Companies