A 1-foot-wide sliver of land sandwiched between a road and a backyard pool. A “vacant” site next to a water sanitation building. A handful of minuscule parcels—one of them shaped like a banana, another a triangle—tucked behind single-family homes.
These were some of the most absurd examples of the properties Orinda tried to pass off as future housing sites, in its attempt to meet the California Department of Housing and Community Development’s lofty goal to build 1,359 units of housing by 2031.
They were among the 40 different sites that made the final draft of the city’s Housing Element inventory—and were reposted only six days before the state’s Jan. 31