Staff and Placeworks consultants talked about changes to their draft housing element since it was reviewed by HCD. The gist is that they've removed many sites from their Downtown Precise Plan which were unlikely to be redeveloped while also increasing allowable density and height of the remaining sites. Staff is submitting their update to HCD for a 60 day review starting October 12th.

​

There was public comment from several residents who spoke not against the housing element but against the whole RHNA process in general.

The staff report proposes several sites which we, as fair housing element organizers, believe actually have a low likelihood of development, especially those parcels which are part of the downtown precise plan which may not be rezoned for high enough densities which would be enough to incentivize a change in current use.

- Discussed by April and Darcy from Rincon Consultants

    - SLIDES - https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1QoJUkwO_Zn1UD9dkt8pPiMXUEMshY3y5?usp=sharing

    - Not building any higher in the theater square (43 ft)

    - Discussing the EIR, and preparing the draft EIR, open for public comment

    - Moved from LOS (Level Of Service) to VMT (Vehicle Miles Traveled)

    - Asking for input on things like height of structures.

    - They're happy to receive written comments

- Council - Inga Miller:

    - Asking for more info about various impacts, aka “views”, like from the public library.

    - How much are VMT calculations being refined because it's new? Parents are driving from one end of the city to the other, because the schools are all on one end, and not near the downtown either. “Are we adding in driving to school and swim clubs?”

    - Darcy (from Rincon): Yes, Orinda is gonna have a baseline high VMT. Yes, it’s difficult to get 15% below baseline or better.

    - Does EIR programmatic cover future projects?

    - D: We’ve covered the overall thing, and they may or may not have to do a whole CEQA/EIR. We want them to not have to do a whole thing each time.

- Council - Nick Kosla

    - Are we also doing LOS in addition to VMT?

    - Drummond Buckley: Yes, we have a great transportation firm.

    - If we build 200 new apts, are we gonna need fire dept to figure out new vehicles needed? Would that be mitigation impacts?

    - Darcy: Only groundbreaking/building impacts matter.

    - What about going from 30 to 55 foot buildings, do they need new ladders?

    - April: New equipment and new personnel are in building fees.

    - We could add a downtown precise plan fee.

    - Drummond: We could add new construction/unit fees. If we could determine if there was a higher impact downtown, then yes, we could raise fees.

    - What about wildfire impacts?

    - Want to see a list of the agencies that will see this for review. And public to see this as well.

- PUBLIC COMMENTS

    - Concern about hydrology and geology being brushed aside. Would conclude that it’s a mistake to not include these because city could lose discretion to the state.

    - Is SB10 an alternative? It requires cities to adopt it, but could be good alt. Could be good time to move to electric energy in building.

    - Theater district leader - Want a vibrant downtown, concerns about traffic and circulation, concerned the district will suffer from higher buildings. Want to divert traffic away from this area to support it.

    - Geology and hydrology important. Concerned about safety of increased population. Need to find chokepoints of roads. Increase density on church and school lots. 

    - Does city consider impact of not building? E.g. if we don't build somewhere, what gets built elsewhere here or in the region, and how does that impact VMT? Want to build more middle housing.

    - How will parking issues be addressed?

    - There has been a fair amount of hydrology done downtown.

    - Increase school bus service and shuttle buses.

- Council/City - Addressing geology concerns

    - Geology and hydrology are highly regulated and not being in the element EIR should not impact town's discretion.

The planning commission had two main items tonight, the first was that the commission approved staff's suggestion on an ordinance for SB9. Nothing very exciting there other than some members of the commission being concerned about on-street parking.

​

The bigger item was staff's report on the housing element and public comment and questions from the commission. There were 3 public comments - all pro-housing - concerned about the concentration of the sites for low income development in one area of the city, the re-use of the same sites from previous housing elements, and questions about the viability of many of the sites which make up a significant portion of Downtown Orinda. We raised doubts as to whether or not property owners would actually decide to redevelop from the current use. Under AB1397 the city will need to show "substantial evidence that the [current] use is likely to be discontinued during the planning period"

​

One thingk that I noted which was kind of a red flag was a commissioner said that 1359 units (the total RHNA allocation) is very large and equals roughly 20% of the city's current housing supply. Staff responded by saying (paraphrasing): "yeah it's a huge change but they (HCD) are not requiring these units to be built, they're requiring our zoning to change to allow capacity and that we have programs would facilitate development if property owners are interested"

Note: I write these notes in Markdown format. To see a nicely formatted version please go to https://gist.github.com/jlhawn/2a2977e74271951fb6d21c5217d34dc1

​

# Orinda Downtown Planning & Housing Element Subcommittee Meeting

​

Public should email comments to wmui@cityoforinda.org

​

# Agenda Item C.1: Housing Element: Sites Inventory

​

This meeting is a discussion only and no decisions will be made.

​

## Estimated current zoned site capacity and (shortfall from Goal)

​

Income Level  | capacity (shortfall)

---------------|---------------------

Very Low      | 64 (523)

Low           | 97 (118)

Moderate      | 308 (250)

Above-Moderate | 469 (891)

​

\> Note: These numbers are from the presentation slide. They don't match up with the 6th Cycle

\> RHNA allocation though so I'm not sure how they came up with them.

​

## Strategies to meet RHNA Allocation

​

### Projected ADUs

​

- Relying on HCD methodology based on annual average over past 4 years

- Annual Average is currently 7 ADUs per year

- Projected over 8 years it 56 units

​

### Downtown Precise Plan sites

​

- 2.6 acres, 221 units

- missed (bevmo site area)

  - (sorry, I'm asking staff for the slides)

- 10.63 acres, 226 units

- 1.09 acres, 636 units

  - (???) I would like a closer look at these slides

  - I don't think the total acreage added up correctly

​

### Other site headers that I missed a lot of details on

​

- Church, School, CalTrans sites

  - staff seems adamant that they don't want to rely on sites like these to meet their goal

  - church sites were in the last two housing elements and did not get developed

- Other Vacant/Underutilized Sites

  - most vacant residential parcels in Orinda have steep slopes making development more difficult

- SB 9 for moderate/above-moderate units

  - staff is still awaiting guidance from HCD on which income category these should go in and how to

    project the number of units that would come from lot splits and duplexes

​

### A few other things I missed details on

​

- Surplus of 282 Very-Low/Low units given this density

- Need 73 moderate, 188 Above moderate

- Want to include a RHNA buffer of 25%

  - in case any sites develop at different income level

​

## Questions/Comments during public comment

​

- How did you arrive at 25 percent buffer goal for the 20 du/acre sites? It seems all the sites

  identified for Very-Low/Low income, taken as a whole, would need to be be at least 80% of

  built units at that affordability level.

  - **Staff/Consultant Answer**: 20 du/acre is the from guidance from HCD on what level of density

    would translate to identifying a site for very low and low income levels. When a project actually

    begins they'll adjust their numbers. If sale price is moderate/above-moderate then the city reports

    it as such when the project completes. This is why they're planning for the buffer.

  - I still don't think this was a good answer. It sounds like they're setting themselves up to miss

    the goal by a lot.

- A council member mentioned earlier that you can't deny a developer who is only able to build maybe 25%

  of units for low income at that density. Is the city partnering with LIHTC affordable housing developers

  for these sites or providing subsidy some other way?

  - **Answer**: Too early in the process but the city is working on ways to market sites to such

    developers.

- What's going to be done differently in the 6th cycle vs the 5th to make these low and very low

  income units actually happen?

  - **Answer**: In the last cycle, the city identified sites for affordable housing goals and HCD

    approved. The sites were there but the market never developed these sites into enough low and

    very-low income housing to meet the RHNA goals.

  - *Really?!?* can we look at project proposals during the 5th cycle to see if any were denied?

    - SB35 should hopefully make more projects happen.

- How does the city plan to keep the concentration of low income housing acceptable? Especially for

  these denser sites identified downtown (AFFH)? Plans to build housing for families? Will state

  and federal housing be supporting low income housing?

  - **Answer**: They expect there will be multi-family development at market rate so that there isn't

    a concentration of low income in areas with new development. Will be looking to market to

    affordable housing developers and help attract subsidy.

- Saw a map of potential sites citywide has a lot of vacant residential sites that probably have

  steep slopes. Any GIS (Geographic information system) tools for determining feasibility based on

  site conditions like grade or types of vegetation cover, etc?

  - **Answer**: Yes, staff and consultants are going to be using tools like this to determine site

    viability and will not include many of these in the final site inventory submitted to HCD if

    they are deemed nonviable.

- Is the City soliciting land owners to see if they want their land included in the site inventory?

  - **Answer**: Reaching out to churches, large public site owners like BART, etc. Not yet for

    private property owners.

- Commenter (Michele Jacobson) is upset that the public didn't have access to the slides in advance

  to come up with questions.

  - **Answer**: Council members and staff are seeing the presentation from consultants at the same

    time as the public. Wasn't sent out early due to all of the details (and some errors). A link

    with the slides will be sent out to everyone no the "interested parties" mailing list.

- "I would hate to see buildings looming over [San Pablo] creek"

  - *Thought from me*: Too Bad. Status quo is strip malls and parking lot looming next to it.

​

## Comments by Council Members, Staff

​

### Council Member Nick Kosla

​

\> "Let's watch the word 'high-rise"'. Maybe 4 stories is a high-rise here" (???).

​

Me (in public comment): 2015 International Building Code says a building is a "high rise" when there

is an occupied floor more than 75 feet above lowest level of fire department vehicle access. If your

goal is 20 du/acre then depending on max lot coverage and other things like parking minimums (if you

have that) these buildings should be however high enough they need to be to allow for that 20 du/acre.

Also high enough to make sure we have 3 or 4 bedroom multifamily units for families, which may be

1200-1400 square feet each.

​

\> There are groups that are out there in Southern California, YIMBY Groups, looking closely at cities

\> developing their housing element. Are they going to be looking at cities our size too?

​

Me: LOL

​

### Planning Director Drummond

​

\> There will be a whole year to talk about all the detail. We need to start environmental review

\> next month, so looking at universe of possible sites now for that EIR.

placeworks is the consultant selected by the city for housing element effort

​

housing element

​

RHNA allocation 5th cycle: 227

RHNA allocation 6th cycle: 1359 

​

- low income: 587

    - subsidized multi-family

    - default density 20 du/a

- moderate:  215

    - duplexes and triplex

    - not market rate ??

- above mod: 557

    - all market rate

​

- focus on sites: 0.5 <-> 10 acres appropriate for low-income

- vacant and underutilized sites

- church sites in last 2 cycles remains undeveloped ??

​

key changes to state law

​

AB 13997

- verify validity of non-vacant sites

- must show potential for redevelopment

​

SB 166

- No Net Loss Zoning

- make sure city has more than enough sites to approve development projects

- What is the target site capacity as a percent of RHNA goal ??

​

AB 686

- Affirmatively Further Fair Housing

- analyze areas of opportunity and access to resources

- provide equitable access to resources

- identify strategies to address barriers to fair housing and combat discrimination

​

TCAC/HCD Opportunity Areas

- Orinda is *all* high-resource

- racially concentrated area compared to county

​

Programs to address new state law

- amend zoning ordinance to allow supportive housing as permitted without discretionary review in zones where multifamily and mixed-use are permitted.

- allow low-barrier navigation centers by-right

​

Outreach Plan

- focus group meetings

- one-on-one service provider interviews

- plancom city council study sessions

​

Schedule

​

Draft Housing Element to be ready around March-April 2022

submit for review June-August 2022

​

Public Questions and Comment 

​

Note: All public comments and questions via Zoom Chat

​

- "BART parking lot should not be considered as part of the universe of sites for the housing element. ... pretty sure we can meet our RHNA numbers with precise plan and other parcels in the city" - Planning director Drummond Buckley

- A city committee is deciding these sites

- Parking space requirements in downtown and near-downtown

    - "not sure what our [parking] requirements are for multifamily since we've had so little [of this type]. generally 2 spaces per unit. maybe slightly lower for MF. Not far enough along for changing these. May be overridden by new state rules." - Drummond Buckley

- A lot of the answers to these questions are "we're not yet far enough along to know"

- any place where we re-zone a property we also need to amend the general plan designation for those parcels

- will use ADUs based on what has already been developed in the community. "7-9 ADUs built per-year in the past few years"

- city will develop an ordinance for SB9 to determine how it may apply in Orinda. 25% of city land is very high fire severity zone; probably excluded. Waiting for guidance from HCD.

- shift from discretionary to objective review processes. "We're working on objective design standards for downtown"

- planners and consultants may investigate an Affordable Housing Overlay

​

​