I’m disgusted at the state of the housing debate. Our communities and neighbors need to do better.
The Pleasant Hill City Council, on which I serve, passed a rezoning of 1,072 parcels across the city on Oct. 20 — without my vote. The meeting was so rife with fear-mongering and intimidation that meaningful deliberation was impossible. I threw up my hands and abstained.
To be clear, the ordinance was required. Pleasant Hill has to align its zoning with its 2040 General Plan and state-mandated Housing Element: 1,813 units in housing-opportunity sites, equitably spread across neighborhoods. That plan passed before I was elected, but implementing it is the incumbent City Council’s legal duty.
Sacramento may mandate more housing, but my constituents are feeling the housing crisis every day. I ran for office because I’m pro-development — I want housing for my neighbors, for teachers, baristas, retail workers and tradespeople. Pleasant Hill thrives because past leaders built boldly; we’re guiding development for its future.
Officials spent years drafting Pleasant Hill’s General Plan, taking in feedback from more than a thousand people. The plan adds small mixed-use zones so residents can one day walk to nearby coffee shops and other amenities right in their neighborhoods. Residents also want to expand on the success of the Downtown Pleasant Hill development, now 25 years old, by expanding dense mixed-use development along Contra Costa Boulevard to John F. Kennedy University.
None of this will happen overnight. Developers will pursue vacant parcels and commercial corridors first. We know that being next to well-designed mixed-use areas tends to have a neutral or positive effect on residential housing values. The plan clears the way for more housing development that Pleasant Hill desperately needs, and the zoning changes stand to create a richer quality of life for our current residents.
My City Council colleagues and I knew we had to pass this ordinance. Years of feedback from residents and government action had been building to this. Change is hard, especially in the suburbs — we all know this. But the status quo is unsustainable.
But no one came to the City Council meeting for a solemn, necessary exercise in civic responsibility. Instead, we got a performance of fear-mongering, entitlement and power: speaker after speaker, most from outside of my working-class district along Interstate 680, launching diatribes against change, aghast at their properties being rezoned, insisting they hadn’t been notified about the coming changes.
Postponing the vote — when it had already been announced on our agenda, detailed in the city newsletter, on pleasanthill2040.com since 2019 and repeatedly shared on social media — would not have served anyone.
Change is coming. Our General Plan can’t reduce the number of housing opportunity sites. Passing around recall paperwork at a City Council meeting isn’t going to change that. Jeering elected officials isn’t going to change that. Creating such a hostile environment in public comment that pro-housing residents are too intimidated to speak isn’t going to change that.
The environment at our Oct. 20 meeting made me sick, so I abstained, to register a protest against a meeting that was performance, not deliberation.
Our communities deserve transparency and serious deliberation before deciding on the best course of action. We don’t need a feedback loop of fear and rage as we work for the good of our communities. The zoning plan passed. By state law and practical reality, this has to be done. As long as I’m a city councilmember, I’ll work for the housing policies our communities so desperately need.
Andrei Obolenskiy has been a member of the Pleasant Hill City Council since 2024 and is a local small business owner.
