By Vanguard Staff
SAN JOSE, Calif. — A newly disclosed proposal to build 768 housing units in downtown San Jose adds another substantial entry to California’s growing housing development pipeline, reinforcing a point that has become increasingly clear in recent weeks: closing the state’s housing production gap will require approving a large number of large, high-yield projects, not just incremental additions at the margins.
The proposal, advanced by Canada-based developer Westbank, would replace an earlier plan that included office space with two residential towers rising 27 and 28 stories. Project filings show the development would deliver 768 homes, along with ground-floor retail, residential amenities and underground parking. The site, located at 35 South Second St., had previously been envisioned as a mixed office-residential complex, but shifting economic conditions following the pandemic and tech sector contraction have pushed developers nationwide to reconsider speculative office construction.
What matters most about the San Jose proposal is not its design or land use details, but its scale. Projects delivering several hundred homes at once are precisely what California must see repeated across regions if it is to overcome decades of underproduction. While no single development can meaningfully resolve the shortage on its own, the accumulation of such projects begins to change the math.
In recent weeks, the Vanguard has reported on a series of large housing proposals advancing across the state, from urban infill developments to expansive multi-phase plans capable of yielding thousands of units over time. Together, these projects challenge the increasingly common claim that California’s housing targets are detached from on-the-ground realities or unsupported by actual development interest.
That claim often relies on mid-cycle reporting that shows many jurisdictions falling short of their Regional Housing Needs Allocation benchmarks. But as the Vanguard has previously noted, the RHNA process is not linear. Large projects typically spend years in planning, environmental review and entitlement before moving forward in visible ways. Production often lags early in the cycle and accelerates later, particularly once political, financial and regulatory conditions align.
The steady appearance of large proposals like the San Jose towers complicates the narrative of failure. Rather than indicating that housing mandates are unworkable, these developments suggest that the system is beginning to produce the kinds of projects it was designed to elicit. Developers are responding to market demand and state pressure by proposing housing at scale, even as other forms of development, particularly office construction, remain stalled.
This distinction is critical. California’s housing crisis is not the result of insufficient ambition but of insufficient follow-through. State targets will only matter if cities are willing to approve projects capable of delivering hundreds or thousands of homes. Small developments, while valuable, cannot close a gap measured in the millions.
The San Jose proposal reflects that reality. It joins a growing list of high-yield projects that, taken together, suggest that housing production at scale is increasingly possible where jurisdictions allow it. The question facing cities and regions now is not whether such projects exist, but whether enough of them will be approved, built and occupied to meaningfully change long-term supply trends.
California’s housing shortfall was decades in the making, and it will not be resolved through isolated wins or symbolic gestures. It will require sustained approval of large projects across multiple cycles. The emergence of another 768-unit proposal does not solve the crisis. But as part of an expanding statewide pipeline, it undercuts the argument that housing goals are failing for lack of interest or feasibility — and refocuses attention where it belongs, on political will and follow-through.
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