The San José City Council will consider big shifts for single-family home neighborhoods on Tuesday that could ultimately allow for much denser housing in large swaths of the city that have long been shielded from major change.
City planners and leaders are eyeing ways to foster more housing overall to help meet stringent state goals, and to bring in more “missing middle” housing, aimed at lowering the sky-high cost of homeownership for people earning middle incomes. The median home sale price in Santa Clara County is about $2 million, and residents need an income of nearly $500,000 to purchase one, according to the California Association of Realtors.
City officials say rezoning San José’s low-density single-family neighborhoods — which make up about 85% of its total residential area — could bring more apartment buildings, triplexes and fourplexes, or other kinds of small multifamily housing, to help more equitably distribute housing…