Jenny Silva: Housing Element Watchdog Check-in Agenda by Lucy

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- Which city(s) are you monitoring, and which chapter(s) if any are you coordinating with?

    - Marin unincorporated, Sausalito

- Do you know if your city committed to a rezoning?

    - Marin County and Sausalito committed to rezoning - Marin County already adopted the HE, 6/12 have certified HE as of now 

    - YIMBY Law is suing Sausalito already according to Jenny 

    - What is the deadline for this rezoning?

        - Sausalito: Will be on 2024 election ballot but have to date done nothing to put on ballot 

        - MC: done, met deadline

- What policies did your city commit to enacting? (If no, ask if any city-owned sites are on the site inventory.)

    -  Which ones are you most excited about?

        - Both MC and S committed to objective design standards

        - Not strict deadlines for policies proposed 

        - MC: commitments to rental registries, tenant protections 

- If rezonings or policies have been introduced, do you know what the timelines and local processes are for passing? What progress has been made?

    - Objective design - committed, no deadline 

    - Tenant protections, committed, no deadline (that Jenny knows of) 

- When are the upcoming public hearings or housing element updates?

    - Tenant protections in MC: many upcoming meetings, Jenny will send me dates after

Belvedere voted to adopt its Housing Element, despite not yet submitting it to HCD for its initial review. There are a number of issues with the Belvedere Housing Element, but most blatant is an assertion that a town that built 5 units during the last cycle will build 160 this cycle without zoning changes, and that the town will built 30 ADUs next cycle. 

The Marin County Board of Supervisors met to adopt the housing element and submit the revisions to the state. Most of the Marin pro-housing community was in support of this housing element. The NIMBY planning commission did not recommend adoption? The nicest thing about the meeting was probably 30 people got up to say that we need housing in Marin. 

The planning commission was planning to recommend approval of the latest draft of the Housing Element. On 1/24 the Board of Supervisors will be voting on whether to adopt the Housing Element. It's interesting because the Planning Commission is very NIMBY and they want the Housing Element to be weakened. However, this will make it more difficult for the Board of Supervisors to approve the Housing Element on 1/24. At this point, the County staff have worked so hard to appease the Planning Commission that the current housing element is not compliant. Catholic Charities, which owns the largest property and has been wanting to develop for 30 years, wrote in to say the proposed zoning would make development infeasible. They note that any requirement for more than 20% affordable housing requires funding, and Marin County is not offering funding. So, I don't think this Housing Element is near compliant. But, the Planning Commission action will increase the likelihood of the Builder's Remedy being applied. 

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I have more details in the tweets I shared during the meeting: https://twitter.com/jrskis/status/1611137096231817222

Public-comments forum on initial public draft of housing element. Much of the meeting devoted to how to undermine the housing element process and RHNA requirements. One caller, "Elizabeth," suggested that adding a second kitchen would do the trick to create a faux second unit in the home so you don't actually need to offer new housing, EMC Planning Group consultant Ande Flower latched onto this, trying to actually think of ways residents could do this and the state deem it legitimate. Another commenter said she was worried that adding a second unit would raise her property taxes. A former mayor was concerned that the letter of ADU interest that she signed actually committed her to offering an ADU. Jane Cooper of anti-development group BRIG, who's now a councilmember elect, complained about traffic, density and displacement for the proposed redevelopment of downtown-area sites and suggested more ADUs (the draft element already has 50 ADUs in it, when the state formula suggests only 21 can be built). Another BRIG member called in to say "Do not change our zoning." Another fear-mongered the collapse of the apartment complex in Florida as a possibility in Belvedere. All of them complained that market-rate housing reflects "developer greed," without acknowledgement that they themselves are developers when they build ADUs that they then put up at market rate, or acknowledgement that increases of supply can reduce overall demand and lower market rates. This anti-development community is now trying to figure out how to get a prohousing designation from HCD.

This was a public meeting to receive input into the housing element. The city council asked a lot of questions about the consequences for not building. The tenor of the questions was that maybe they don't need to worry about the feasibility of the element. This may be important if sites don't improve. 

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I made these comments: ·     On site selection: The county has not adequately addressed the probability of sites being developed. It looks like they have a buffer of 61/3059 units - less than 2%. This is a problem for multiple reasons:

o  Unfortunately, the site inventory looks like it has many unlikely sites - there are many privately owned sites slated for a relatively low number of affordable units. For example, a Sloat nursery location is slated for 26 affordable units - this is 100% of the units. My understanding is that it is extremely difficult to get a 100% affordable unit project to pencil, especially if there are land costs involved. Is Sloat interested in converting its nursery to housing? Two Marin City Churches are on the inventory. Without confirmation of interest from the owners, we have to assume that a substantial percentage will not convert. This housing element doesn't do that. 

HCD is requiring jurisdictions to consider the probability of development. Marin County's is not good. Last cycle, only 1 of the identified sites was converted to housing. Marin County did not meet it's RHNA for affordable housing last cycle, and 80% of the affordable units produced were ADUs. Yet, it assumes that affordable 324 units will be produced on available land without changes. History shows this isn't realistic

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I wanted to say, but ran out of time to say this:

·     I'm glad to see the Housing Element address that community resistance has restricted housing. However, I'm skeptical that an education program will fix this. We should expand byright approval to cover more projects. To the extent that education is undertaken, it should focus on the benefits of housing density overall - not just affordable housing.

·     I support the increase in height limits. I would encourage broader increases in densities as well. 

·     It looks like a large % of units compared to the population are located in the Western, less populated areas. Unless there are a lot of commuters going into these communities, it seems like it will worsen traffic issues, not resolve them. 

·     Many of the affordable housing sites are a relatively low number of units (<50 units) that are listed as all affordable units. Economics for small, 100% affordable projects do not pencil out. We need to increase density to make the projects bigger or move to more mixed income projects.

Most of the participants (who are local to either Marin or Sausalito) are in support of more housing.

The county is making there plan, lots of community opposition!

I got there late, but still was able to participate in a small breakout work session. I mean — it’s unincorporated Marin so there was a lot of grumbling especially about things like sewage and environmental hazards. But, people were generally trying to identify sites, mostly small scale, talking about ADUs, church parking lots, nonprofit developers. But they seemed receptive when I spoke about need for a lot more housing, upzoning and density, especially near transit as needed for equity and to allow young people to stay. They are using that Balancing Act site so will also input there. 

This was a presentation by the consultant on the Marin County Site Selection for the Housing Element. This is for unincorporated Marin County. Speakers have been heavily pro-housing. One speaker mentioned concerns about how septic systems will be handled with increased housing. the water crisis for West Marin was raised. One said Affirmatively Housing meant we should build in her neighborhood, rather than in Marin City. Several people mentioned that we need to actually build the housing, not just meet the RHNAs. One requested that ADUs not be considered, as most people building ADUs for guest quarters. 

Pretty uneventful. The usual comments that ABAG or HCD don't understand, there just isn't any developable land in Marin county! 

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There seemed to be Supervisors that support housing and the staff seemed really solid. Marin County has a CAC for the Housing Element process. 

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Future TODO: See if we can still get YIMBYs on the CAC and if we can't, make sure watchdogs attend the CAC meetings.