Atherton

Atherton has not submitted a new draft housing element to HCD for over a year. Their current plan, as most recently discussed at city council, continues to rely on ADUs for more than 80% of the site inventory. Their most recent plans still do not rezone a single site to the so-called Mullin Density of 20 dwelling units per acre, the minimum density required to consider a site eligible for lower-income housing in the housing element. ADUs cannot meet the needs of many groups whose needs must be accounted for under Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing rules, including those with disabilities, extremely low-income households who may not own cars, and large families. If Atherton does not rezone a substantial number of sites to allow multi-family housing that can meet the needs of the entire community, HLC does not believe they can achieve housing element compliance.

Despite receiving a "most" compliance letter which says that several programs need to be revised, HCD has apparently signed off on some problematic aspects of Atherton's housing element:

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Some tidbits from Atherton’s zoning code update. The code requires

• A 12-foot landscape screening requirement between properties, imposing large landscaping costs on new residents (p. 17 of the new zoning code);
• Parking requirements tying the parking minimum to bedroom count, so a one-bedroom home requires one spot whereas a two-bedroom home requires two. As a result, Atherton is disincentivizing family-sized homes (p. 29);
• Window detail requirements mandating windows on the second story or higher must be elevated at least 54 inches above the floor and made “translucent but not transparent”–essentially eliminating the ability to build windows on second or third stories that future multi-family residents can look out of (p. 26);
• A maximum of four primary entryways to any one building structure, disincentivizing townhomes; and more (p. 19)

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Atherton adopted a housing element on October 20, 2024 and submitted it to HCD for review. On December 30, 2024, HCD responded to Atherton with a letter informing the Town that their adopted housing element is not compliant with state housing element law. It is known as a "most" letter because HCD acknowledged that most of their housing element complies, but that further significant revisions are necessary.

HCD told them that they didn't do their re-zoning correctly, but only required small changes. They should get re-certified soon.

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Atherton decided it would re-zone the Circus Club for housing, after we hosted a party on their polo field.

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County grand jury has recently found that ADU-heavy housing-element strategies are bad. TBD whether the grand jury finding will matter to HCD.

Three general policy changes were discussed:

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1. Rezoning: previous draft relied on rezoning primarily in the North Fair Oaks to meet the county's RHNA affordable quota. Housing advocates provided public comment urging the board to expand rezoning to also include higher opportunity neigborhoods. Supervisor started the conversation in firm support for this effort, and Pine and Corzo backed him up. Mueller suggested the Board not weigh in on the issues and essentially let the planning department work it out, which was met with criticism

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1. Tenant protections: Corzo and Pine have been working on a tenant protection ordinance to strengthen just cause standards and explore options of a rental registry, etc. Advocates called on the county to incorporate these updates into the housing element. The county attorney provided clarification to the board that the housing element would have supremacy over an ordinance, and any future ordinance would need to comply with the element. The board generally agreed that since the ordinance is already in the works, there was no need to further slow down the element drafting process by incorporating tenant protections

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Housing for special needs: Board discussed a number of options that would strengthen the element's language regarding supportive/accessible housing. One such revision they seemed in favor of regarding lowering minimum parking requirements for housing for disabled individuals. The board agreed that that policy "made sense." 

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The Board ultimately pushed final decisions on these measures to the next meeting. The Board also discussed how the supervisors intended to allocate their Measure K money, but I didn't stick around for that. 

https://sanmateocounty.legistar.com/View.ashx?M=A&ID=998929&GUID=0D46FA6C-A477-4001-8780-87E9B4ED1E73&G=1088EC25-A43A-408F-A57C-73C0A70269AB

It was a general public study session where feedback was provided to support more affordable housing in our city in support of state laws

The PC was meeting to consider the Housing Element modification suggested by the Town Council- to upzone the R1 parcels bordering on El Camino from Stockbridge to the Redwood City border to 20 du/acre, and the 23 Oakwood parcel to 10 du/acre. Residents of those 18 parcels bordering El Camino were out in force to oppose this, several of them saying that they wanted to be able to be able to remodel or rebuild their houses if they chose to. I asked if residents would be able to remodel or rebuild SFHs under this proposal, and I understood the answer to be yes, they would.

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The PC voted to recommend putting a zoning overlay for 20 du/acre on all the sites bordering El Camino on both sides, and sites in a section bordering Valparaiso, for 20 du/acre. This would mean that an owner could choose to follow the current zoning, or the multifamily overlay. (But wouldn't the upzoning have the same effect? It sounded like it would, but I may not understand something here). This zoning overlay would be a replacement for  the upzoning. 

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The PC also voted to recommend reducing the minimum size for a lot to be allowed to be split under the normal town rules, from two acres to one acre. This would mean that parcels as small as half an acre would be allowed to be created.

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These recommendations seem fine from a YIMBY perspective, but from the perspective of NIMBYs, they seem worse than the Town Council proposal because more areas get upzoned. I don't understand why the PC passed them. Maybe to make the Town Council proposal seem more reasonable?

This was a chance for the Atherton City Council to react to HCD's scathing letter of determination for their Housing Element. Staff was looking for direction from council on how to proceed, but didn't get it.

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The city attorney, and Barbara Kautz, an outside attorney and frequent opponent of CaRLA in court, both attempted to bring the city council to reality, without success. They said that HCD was unlikely to accept a housing element that doesn't have multifamily housing in it. The council did not want to hear that. 

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Like several other rich foothill cities, Atherton is relying on ADUs for low income housing. They project too many ADUs, and they say that many of these ADUs will be low income housing and will affirmatively further fair housing. HCD isn't buying this. The lawyers and the city manager try to explain this to the council, but the council keeps trying to evade the truth.

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Council Candidate and old man shaking hands at clouds Gary Conlon gave public comment. He said the RHNA numbers are wrong. If Atherton built low-income housing, he asked, "Where are these low income people going to come from?" I swear, he really said that.

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The meeting ended with a long discussion about how the town would do some more community outreach. The only members of the community that the town intends to reach out to are people living in single family houses. The meetings will be at people's houses, and the town will send out invitations to people who live in Atherton. Evidently nobody else but single family homes count as "community." HCD may disagree with this definition. 

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The town council didn't make any decisions about how they will make their RHNA. 

William Gibson - presented on (reduced) constraints, concerns from community re housing, HE goals, # of pipeline projects and ADUS. Commissioner comments. Inappropriate parcels should be identified directly to him. 

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Comments by Green Foothills, community members, including advocate for senior housing and advocates against sprawl. Commenters focused on the numbers being high and incorrect assumptions (e.g. ADUs = housing and all vacant SFH lots will be built out).

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Commission voted to submit as-is to the Board of Supervisors (did not respond to any of the public comments).