Housing Element Watchdog Check-in Agenda 

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

    - Fremont

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

    - No, they did not commit, not looking at large scale rezoning because last time they updated the general plan was sufficient  

    - What is the deadline for this rezoning?

        - No deadline 

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

    - Yes, policies committed 

    - Make it easier to build ADUs 

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

    - No deadlines 

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

    - Not sure, Lisa doesn’t think there is another meeting soon

This was a kickoff of the 30-day public comment period on the first publicly-released draft of the 2023-2031 Fremont Housing Element. Staff summarized key parts, especially the programs and the site inventory.

This was a presentation by City Planners to introduce the housing element update process to city council.

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Presentation highlights:

- Staff still maintains that Fremont doesn't need to update zoning to meet its housing needs.

- Compared with the presentation a couple of weeks earlier to Planning Commission, this presentation spoke more about proactive solutions to increase housing production (such as re-considering parking minimums), and this time they didn't make the excuse that it's not their fault if we fail to build enough housing as long as we provide a compliant housing element. I saw that as a positive improvement that showed they were listening to feedback from commissioners and public commenters, but it remains to be seen whether actions will change in addition to words.

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Council discussion (timestamps come from the closed-caption transcript, which is available here: http://fremont-transcripts.com/city-council/2022-04-05.txt):

- Jenny Kassan (20:52:44) said that we should build less market-rate housing and more affordable housing. She complained that the state process rewards the total number. She claimed that building market-rate housing drives up the need for even more below-market-rate housing.

- Raj Salwan, Teresa Cox, and Teresa Keng advocated more public engagement.

- Raj Salwan (20:57:46) praised the city for recent policy updates intended to increase affordable housing development such as reduced fees for naturally-affordable units.

- Teresa Keng (21:00:02) complained that other cities aren't doing their part and that Fremont's new housing is creating more traffic.

- Yang Shao (21:00:56) wants to encourage ADUs.

- Raj Salwan, Mayor Lily Mei, and staff discussed getting credit from HCD for affordable-by-design housing such as ADUs (21:02:37). Staff shared that ADUs don't count as affordable because they're not deed-restricted, but stated that they're requesting HCD to start providing credit for ADUs based on [price] data.

- Mayor Lily Mei stated that a General Plan update [presumably a Land Use Element update] would be required to change some of the land use decisions, and asked if any General Plan amendment was in the works. Staff clarified that the Housing Element is part of the general plan but that no comprehensive General Plan update was planned.

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It was a very short discussion overall.  I heard some concern from fellow members of the public about the brevity of the discussion and the lack of depth of the staff presentation.

Agenda link: http://fremontcityca.iqm2.com/Citizens/Detail_Meeting.aspx?ID=1871

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This was item 5.1, a presentation to introduce the Housing Element update. It included a reminder that, during the 2015-2023 cycle, we have exceeded our above-moderate allocation and our total allocation and are far behind on all 3 lower-income housing allocations. Staff then described the goals and process for making the next-cycle Housing Element.

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During the discussion, staff and at least one commissioner mentioned that they couldn't control what actually got built. Commissioner Daulton pushed back and argued for changing policies aggressively (such as eliminating parking minimums in priority development areas) to increase the chances of meeting our RHNA numbers.

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3 public speakers spoke; all YIMBY-aligned.

As per the agenda, the report showed that Fremont has exceeded its total RHNA numbers by exceeding the above-moderate income category, but all 3 other income categories are far behind and are not on track to be achieved by 2023.

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There was no discussion from councilmembers, and they opted not to hear the staff presentation. They approved the progress report with 6 ayes and 1 abstention from Councilmember Kassan who was not able to open the report.

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I was the only public commentor, and I asked them to keep these numbers in mind when updating the Housing Element over the next few months.

According to the progress report, the total number of permits is already above the RHNA total. However, only above-moderate income levels are above their targets.  All other income levels are not on track.  Worst is "moderate" income level where only 22 units of the 978 RHNA allocation have been permitted.

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The meeting agenda item contains tables of number of permits issued: http://fremontcityca.iqm2.com/Citizens/Detail_LegiFile.aspx?Frame=&MeetingID=1869&MediaPosition=&ID=4547&CssClass=

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The only action for this item was to accept the report; that was approved unanimously.

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(Unofficial) Meeting transcript: http://fremont-transcripts.com/planning-commission/2022-02-24.txt.  The housing element report starts at timestamp 21:01:20.