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

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). 

22 people spoke in the first half, mostly Latinx people who 70% of the time were speaking Spanish through a translator describing their housing story of 3 families to 3 rooms in a house, rent hikes, the need for privacy for their teenagers who share a single room w them basically begging for more housing. No one spoke against more housing.

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Council members said "YES we need actions not words, let's green light either this 8 unit project or this 50 unit project" pretending that would solve this crisis. Planning staff directed to develop plans for the 50 unit proposal. 

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Measure D reforms: 4 of 5 council members were extremely hesitant to change the rules to make it easier to build ADUs, concern of "violating the spirit of Measure D (1999). 4 people spoke, 3 of them YIMBYs and 1 NIMBY. I suggested in public comment that Measure M was racist bc any restriction in the supply of housing helps home owners (who are mostly white families in single family homes) and hurts renters (who are mostly Latinx people in HMB) and the council exploded w white fragility decrying "the commentor who wants to see a racist law where there isn't one because laws are only racist if they intentionally discriminate based on race and not if they have a racist outcome."

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I successfully moved the needle from "no higher than 2 story development" to "I'd be open to 3 or 4 story development downtown but no higher" from a NIMBY council member. I learned who I think could be persuaded into being a housing champion and whose boomer mind was too far gone. And I learned to not call the majority white majority over 50 years old council racist (even when they are extremely racist) bc their tiny heads will explode and demonstrate a 4th grader's definition of racism. Excited to base build and change some minds. 

Overall support for at least one site for deeply affordable housing. Strong concern for viability. No discussion of AFFH on the council and quite a bit of interest in keeping all of the AH in the downtown. Preference for ELI or generally affordable housing over farmworker housing.