Long Beach

 Debrief of the 9/26 City Planning Commission hearing and decision.

Coalition letter from business groups w/ the specific policy asks were not addressed by the Planning Commission. Perhaps they felt like they were following the Mayor's lead. Commissioners spoke about single family neighborhoods but no movement/changes on the policy.

2. Strategy for the City Council (date?) No date, PLUM first and then goal is to have the full council vote happen before Dec. 13.

              A. PLUM Committee Members (Chair – John Lee, Vice Chair – Heather Hutt, Members: Katy Yaroslavsky, Imelda Padilla, Kevin de Leon)

Bit of a question as to what role Councilmember Lee will take. Will he lead as a Chair or be more of a figurehead until the new council takes over next year?

Mayor Bass doesn't seem to be focused on spending political capital on making changes. Perhaps the Council (and specific members) will have more of an interest in making these changes?

              B. Other Councilmembers most likely to be interested: CD1 and CD4 are big for single family zoning. CD 5, 4, 3, 2 for more technical asks/improvements. CD12 for getting an understanding of an appetite to open up the conversation. CD 13 open to single family conversation.

3. AECOM Feasibility Analysis of the CHIP and its implications for this next stage

AECOM analysis - engineering consulting firm and GC that Planning hired to do feasibility and market data to validate CHIP. AHLA leading an effort within this space to help inform advocacy, will circle back. There could be an opportunity to show how much development capacity (in terms of #s) is missed by excluding R1 zoning, in exhibit D (ie up to 40,000 or 60,000 parcels).

LA County's Housing Element calls for a study of their parking requirements and identifies those requirements as a constraint to housing. They hired consultants to study the issue and the consultants are recommending reductions in parking requirements. The workshop was to gather public input. I put in comments in favor of eliminiating parking requirements. Some other commenters were skeptical of parking reofrm.

I've drafted a post for the Abundant Housing LA blog (forthcoming) where I will go into detail on this, but I left the meeting frustrated at how esoteric it would have seemed to anyone not already in the weeds, how mostly the usual suspects showed up, and how we heard a lot of complaining about RHNA without a corresponding recognition of the severity of the housing affordability crisis.

It felt like a conflict between city employees (which were trying to decrease their RHNA allocation) and YIMBYs.

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There was a big question about whether or not cities should be able trade their RHNA allocations, and how to take into account things like cost of infrastructure.

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I pushed to encourage the state to use market prices as part of assessing pent-up housing need.

One of the justifications for keeping new housing out of high resource areas is that it would decrease economic segregation, this seems like a tacit admitment that the plan will cause displacement. Most of the planned housing is located near high quality transit, but there are still high parking requirements that will hurt affordability and transit use.

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4 of the public commenters were from construction unions advocating for hireing of local labor, they did not support or oppose the housing element.

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No one was expressly opposed, some were unclear of their opinions.

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Chris Koontz, Deputy Director of Development Services - most important thing to do is add more housing to keep rents and prices down. Focus on condos and apartments, SFHs won't be someone's first home purchase

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Council discussion

D9 Richardson - Supporting of new housing, running for mayor

D2 Allen - supportive of housing element

D3 Price - running for mayor, asking about downpayment assistance programs

D6 Saro - added an annual housing progress review, asks about how this program can reduce homelessness

D1 Zendejas - Supports the housing element

D8 Austin - Supports the housing element

Mayor Garcia - Running for congress, Says the city should be supportive of all kinds of housing to reduce cost of housing. Should look for opportunities to upzone areas of the city

No comment from Districts 4 and 5, low density areas of the city.

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Passes unanimously

Housing element was approved as written. A few comments from Public Counsel, Building Industry Association, and environmental activist Lynne Plambeck. Commissioners were concerned about high low income housing goal and asked if SB 9 will help. Planning director responded that while SB 9 will increase total capacity  it will not increase the number of sites necessary for low income housing due to HE specific requirements for eligible sites. Commissioner also wanted it to go back to commission after HCD made more comments but it was batted down by staff as they are working towards a public hearing at BOS on October 19 as they intend to have it submitted to HCD by the statutory October 31 deadline and not use the grace period. Looks like staff is fine with doing whatever HCD wants just to get it approved and the element certified, and there was little push back against it.