Livermore is in an era of construction and development, with multiple housing projects underway across the city. The developments are designed to address housing needs while adding new stores, markets and transportation options, all with the potential to benefit Las Positas College students and staff.
Among the projects are Eden Housing with 130 planned units, Cornerstone with 253 units, The Well at Sunset with 128 units and the Pacific and Livermore Townhomes Project with 115 units. All are designed to be affordable and to accommodate moderate-income, low-income families and seniors.
The largest development is the Isabel Neighborhood-Specific Plan (INSP), located off Interstate 580 at Isabel Avenue, near Portola Avenue and North Canyons Parkway, adjacent to LPC. The expected total development value of the INSP is $2,480,195,840 and will transform roughly 2.1 million square feet into 4,095 housing units of varying sizes, coffee shops, daycares, neighborhood parks, pedestrian paths and a K-12 school.
“We want people to be able to choose all different kinds of housing options for all different kinds of lifestyles and family situations. If Livermore is going to be a very inclusive place, then we need to have one-bedroom apartments and we need to have five-bedroom homes and everything in between,” Brandon Cardwell said, Livermore’s director of innovation and economic development.
California requires cities to include a housing element in their general plan, which addresses regional housing needs and outlines strategies for meeting them. Livermore’s 2023-2031 housing element found that “in general, extremely low- and very low-income households cannot afford market rental or owner-occupied housing.”
To help address that, the INSP requires 20% of units to be set aside for various income levels across different housing types, exceeding the city’s 15% requirement.
“We wanted to up the requirement here to kind of create even more affordable housing inventory, if you will. And the developers have been each project that’s been approved out here, they’ve been required to abide by that, again, based on their kind of product type that they’re proposing,” Ashley Vera said, senior planner for Livermore.
Of the 2.1 million square feet in the plan, 1.7 million will be for office space, 180,000 for business parks, 327,000 for neighborhood and general commercial use and 270,000 for industrial use. Current residents in the area have expressed concerns about the lack of amenities, requiring them to travel over I-580 into central Livermore to meet basic needs. The addition of new restaurants, stores and markets would bring essentials closer to campus, reducing the need for extended travel. This also provides opportunities for commuter students who may be stuck at school all day to work, study and relax without traveling far.
“The thought was how do we design that neighborhood so that it feels like a little college town inside of Livermore? (Students and faculty would) have the opportunity to get off campus for a break and kind of go be in what feels like a little mini downtown-like environment.” Cardwell said.
The project is not expected to cause a significant population spike. Any population additions are forecasted to occur in accordance with Livermore’s General Plan predictions of the town’s community numbers upon project completion. The nearby INSP residences would be able to take advantage of the proximity to LPC, contributing to increased enrollment rates for the school.
While there are concerns about increased traffic around the project’s intersections and LPC, the plan intends to minimize congestion in the center of the INSP. Throughout the INSP area, there are numerous developers with diverse land-use plans. There is no expected start nor completion date for the INSP, meaning construction-induced congestion in the area won’t occur all at once. Some development spaces have already broken ground, including Serenity Shea Homes, located at the west end of Portola Avenue, which currently offers completed and move-in-ready housing options.
Another part of the project includes the addition of transportation services. The Valley Link Project, a 22-mile rail service, will connect the end of the Tri-Valley Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) line through Altamont Pass into San Joaquin County. From the BART Dublin/Pleasanton station, the Valley Link line will have stops at Isabel Avenue and Southfront Road in Livermore, and continue to Mountain House. The project is estimated to be completed in 2040 and has the capacity to carry 30,000 passengers per day.
“Isabel, the neighborhood plan, is part of what they call a transit-oriented development, or transit-oriented community, which means you’ve got a hub of transit service, which in this case would be Valley Link. And then you’ve got all these amenities and services around them, where you’ve got your residential you’ve got your commercial uses, you’ve got areas to work to have your everyday needs met,” Vera said.
Many LPC students and staff commute to the campus daily from across the Bay Area. The addition of this rail service will help reduce travel times and offer more people the opportunity to become connected to the school and the city. The INSP includes the addition of protected paths for those traveling to LPC, which will alleviate traffic congestion around Isabel Avenue. Some of these protected paths are to be constructed in connection with the Valley Link rail service.
“I think that you know having public transit and allowing people to carpool and more people to share a way of transportation allows fewer cars, less traffic on the road, and I think that could be really good for the environment cause it’s less carbon emissions and all that. It’s more communal, I would say, and I see that as a good thing for us as a community,” Jarren Low said, a psychology major and commuter from Castro Valley.
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TOP PHOTO: Excavators are working on a previously empty plot of land being developed by Shea Homes on Portola Ave across from Cayetano Park. The workers are flattening the area and preparing it for construction. (Photo by Maximilien Kiyoi/The Express)
Maximilien Kiyoi is a staff writer of The Express. Follow them on X @Max445193989306.
