The San Benito Blueprint

Before You Begin

Preliminary Application: An SB 330 preliminary application is an early filing that a housing developer can submit to a city or county under California’s Housing Crisis Act of 2019 (Senate Bill 330) to lock in existing development rules before a full project application is ready.

It allows a developer to “freeze” key standards such as zoning, density, and fees based on the rules in effect on the date the preliminary application is submitted, as long as a complete follow-up application is filed within the required time, usually 180 days.

Workforce Housing: Refers to housing intended for working households who earn too much to qualify for traditional low-income affordable housing programs, but not enough to afford market-rate rents or home prices in their local area. This is often times public employees, teachers, firefighters, police officers, etc.

Overview

In another turn for the San Benito County High School District’s site on Best Road, the district is proposing a 1,000-unit multifamily workforce housing development. The overall project would come complete with a new district office, childcare center, and shopping center. This site was previously requested by the district to be used for a potential high school for planning purposes. The high school district submitted the SB330 preliminary application on January 23rd with the stated intent to submit a full application within the 180-day deadline.

Project Details

Housing

The San Benito County High School District has proposed a 1,000-unit, multi-family, mixed-use development at the corner of Best Road and Highway 25. The project will be over 50% affordable at 520 units, with roughly 30% (or 310 units) being dedicated to low and very low-income housing. The other 20% (210 units) of affordable units will be dedicated to those with moderate-income. 480 units would be available as market rate.

No single-family housing is proposed on this site, and the 1,000 units will be made up of apartments and townhomes. 520 apartment units (at 1,2, and 3-bedrooms) would be spread across 21 buildings, with 480 attached townhomes (at 2 and 3-bedrooms) spread across 96 buildings.

Retail

The development envisions 60,000 square feet of retail space spread across 6 buildings. The proposal mentions one of the spaces being a large grocery store, with the others being smaller retail tenants.

District Office and Other Uses

Beyond the retail and housing component, the project also includes a 15,000 square foot district office and a 10,000 square foot childcare center. In addition, the proposal includes two 7,500 square feet community buildings and 216,087 square feet of open space.

Workforce Housing

This project’s intent is to be workforce housing for teachers and district staff. According to the proposal, priority will go to employees of the San Benito High School District; from there, priority will be given to employees of the Hollister Elementary School District, Southside Elementary School District, North County Joint Union Elementary School District, and others. Priority will then be given to employees of local government agencies, such as the County of San Benito, before the general public. This is allowed legally under the states denisty bonus law and the county’s inclusionary housing ordinance.

County Still Eligible For Builder’s Remedy

Recently, public statements by some local officials have created confusion about the county’s eligibility for the Builder’s Remedy. This blog believes it is important to clarify the central question:

Does Builder’s Remedy still apply in unincorporated San Benito County?

The short answer is: yes, for now.

Although the county recently reached conditional housing element compliance, it was required to complete additional steps to achieve full compliance because it was more than a year late in meeting the state deadline.

Those steps included adopting and implementing rezoning to accommodate required housing sites. After those actions are completed, the Department of Housing and Community Development must review and formally confirm compliance. Only after that confirmation would Builder’s Remedy no longer apply to new applications. Santa Clara County clarifies this on their planning site here.

These additional steps were adopted on January 13, 2026. According to the state’s Housing Element Dashboard, the county is currently awaiting formal notification of compliance from HCD. Assuming no contestations from HCD.

Based on that timing, the high school district’s preliminary application appears to have been submitted while Builder’s Remedy protections were still available.

Further, once the county receives formal certification of its Housing Element from the state, Builder’s Remedy will no longer be available for new projects in unincorporated San Benito County. However, projects that submitted a valid preliminary application before certification are generally allowed to proceed under the rules that were in effect at the time they filed. This means those earlier projects may retain certain legal protections, including eligibility for Builder’s Remedy and SB 330 vesting, even after the county becomes compliant. Certification mainly affects future applications, not those already submitted during the noncompliance period.

Below, we have included a list obtained through a public records request of Builder’s Remedy projects identified by the county. This list may not be exhaustive and reflects information provided by the county at the time of the request. Some projects have not yet submitted formal applications, while others have.

Stay tuned for more updates.

Resources

SBHSD Preliminary Proposal:

County SB330 (Builder’s Remedy) List