Posted on: November 10, 2025
Source: The Independent; Author: David Jen
PLEASANTON — The financial health of the Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) system and concerns about sufficient parking steered discussions of possible new housing at the Dublin/Pleasanton BART station during the Oct. 22 Pleasanton Planning Commission meeting.
Representatives of Van Meter Williams Pollack, an urban design and planning firm working with the city, presented a concept plan that laid out options for four new buildings and a plaza on the 14.9 acres of BART-owned land adjacent to the transit station. The project could add between 800 and 1,300 new homes, likely as rentals, plus commercial spaces for placemaking businesses such as retail or dining.
“If you think about Pleasanton in general and where larger scale developments can occur without impacting surrounding residential neighborhoods, et cetera, this is really the place to work on a lot of your housing element needs,” Van Meter partner Rick Williams said, referring to a state mandate to allow for 5,965 new housing units in the city by 2031.
Commissioner Brandon Pace questioned how much of the project’s success depended on the viability of the ailing transit agency.
Although Williams described the parcels as “great development sites” with or without BART, he expected the transit agency to persist for the foreseeable future.
“Nobody is anticipating that BART isn’t going to be there,” Williams said. “And it’s going to be the best and most valuable transit system that we’re going to have in the Bay Area for many years to come.”
The BART agency sounded alarms in the years following the COVID-19 pandemic when a prolonged embrace of the work-from-home lifestyle prevented a rebound in ridership numbers. While passenger fares covered some 71% of the agency’s operating costs before the pandemic, that percentage dropped to 12% in 2021 and has struggled to exceed 30% since.
September ridership numbers showed a 9.9% increase over the same period last year but still amounted to only 50% of September numbers from 2019.
About $308 million in state and regional assistance will buoy BART service through spring of next year, but the agency will then begin operating at a deficit ranging between $350 million and $400 million per year.
Gov. Gavin Newsom last month signed a bill authorizing a November 2026 ballot measure to possibly increase sales tax in Alameda, Contra Costa, San Francisco, San Mateo and Santa Clara counties to generate an additional $980 million in annual revenues for Bay Area transit.
Commissioners also asked if plans to cull parking were shortsighted. The project has proposed repurposing BART parking lots, currently partly empty from the pandemic, for housing, but commissioners pushed back on the idea, worried that parking demand may return in coming years.
“Parking is the linchpin of this whole effort, and we have to get that right,” Chair Ken Morgan said, adding that the project should focus its resources on a parking study.
Commissioner Anurag Jain cautioned that it would be hard to replace parking once redeveloped for other uses. Future parking demands, he said, “will come at a cost. If that cost is not paid by BART or the developer, the cost will be borne by the residents of Pleasanton and surrounding cities. It’s not free either way.”
Public speakers welcomed the project’s included improvements to bicycle infrastructure along the Iron Horse Trail, additions that may dovetail with the transit-oriented neighborhood.
The project team expects to present community and planning commission feedback to the city council on Nov. 18, with possible adoption of a development framework in February.
Read the full article, here.
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