The San Mateo City Council officially approved updates to its housing element as part of its settlement agreement with the Housing Action Coalition, which claimed the city’s plan hinged on inaccurate assessments of several sites’ housing capacities.
The nonprofit organization filed the lawsuit right after the city adopted its housing element, a state-mandated blueprint that outlines how each city will accommodate its housing goals, or Regional Housing Needs Allocation. The city must plan for 7,015 housing units between 2023-31 and has identified numerous undeveloped or underdeveloped areas in its site inventory plan that could potentially accommodate more housing units.
According to the lawsuit filed by HAC, however, several properties listed in San Mateo’s housing element as candidates for residential housing construction in the next several years were unrealistic. Some included an 8-acre portion of the Bridgepointe Shopping Center parking lot, which was listed as a likely housing site by 2031. The complaint said that “many of the retail and restaurant uses that depend on the parking lot are new, and have long-term leases that run for most or all of the planning period,” adding that the businesses have not shown any intention of relocating. Other dubious housing sites per the suit included Parkside Plaza Shopping Center, Villa Plaza and the Borel Shopping Center.
The city and nonprofit reached a settlement last July, in which the former agreed to remove most of those sites from the inventory, including the Bridgepointe parking lot site and Borel Shopping Center. They also agreed to recalculate capacity estimates to better take into account the General Plan and Measure T — a 2024 measure that increased height and density limits in certain areas — and added additional sites to the plan’s inventory which also have development proposals in the works.
The city is still making significant progress on its current RHNA figures, Assistant Planner Steven Peck said during the council meeting Feb. 23.
“Since the housing element was approved in 2024, the city has received a significant number of proposed housing development projects, which currently in February 2026 is upwards of 6,000 residential units seeking entitlement,” Peck said.
Some of the new applications include the redevelopment of the Hillsdale Shopping Center, which proposes demolishing the current mall south of 31st Avenue and replacing it with a mix of office, retail and multiunit developments, totaling over 4 million square feet. Several eight- to 10-story commercial buildings are proposed along El Camino Real, with roughly 1,400 housing units proposed, though it could increase to 1,670. Another is located at 1650-1720 S. Amphlett Blvd. and would replace the office park with 192 townhome-style condominiums and 64 detached single-family homes.
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